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44 Let us now praise famous men 
Men of little showing — 

For their work continueth, 

And their work continueth y 
Greater than their knowing . 

Western wind and open surge 
Tore us from our mothers , 

Flung us on a naked shpre 
(Twelve bleak houses by the shore t 
Seven summers by the shore 1 ) 

’Mid two hundred brothers. 

There we met with famous men 
Set in office o’er us. 

And they beat on us with rods — 
Faithfully with many rods — 

D°ily beat us on with rods — 

For the love they bore us ! 

Out of Egypt unto Troy — 

Over Himalaya — 

Far and sure our bands have gone— 
Hy — Brasil or Babylon, 

Islands of the Southern Run, 

And cities of Cathaia ! 


And we all praise famous men — 
Ancients of the College ; 

For they taught us common sense — 
Tried to teach us common sense — 
Truth and God’s Own Common Sense 
Which is more than knowledge ! 

Each degree of Latitude 
Strung about Creation 
Seeth one (or more) of us, 

(Of one muster all of us — 

Of one master all of us — ) 

Keen in his vocation. 

This we learned from famous men 
Knowing not its uses 
When they showed in daily work 
Man must finish off his work — 

Right or wrong, his daily work— 

And without excuses. 

Servants of the staff and chain, 

Mine and fuse and grapnel — 

Some before the face of Kings, 

Stand before the face of Kings ; 
Bearing gifts to divers Kings — 

Gifts of Case and Shrapnel. 

This we learned from famous men 
Teaching in our borders. 

Who declared it was best, 

Safest, easiest and best — 

Expeditious, wise and best — 

To obey your orders. 

Some beneath the further stars 
Bear the greater burden. 

Set to serve the lands they rule, 

(Save he serve no man may rule) 
Serve and love the lands they rule ; 
Seeking praiso nor guerdon. 


I 

This we learned from famous men 
Knowing not we learned it. 

Only, as the years went by — 
Lonely, as the years went by — 

Far from help as years went by 
Plainer we discerned it. 

Wherefore praise we famous men 
From whose bays we borrow — 
They that put aside Today- 
All the joys of their Today — 

And with toil of their Today 
Bought for us Tomorrow ! 

Bless and praise we famous men — 
Men of little showing ! 

For their work continueth 
And their work continueth 
Broad and deep continueth 
Great beyond their knotting! 


Copyright, 1893, by Rudyard X i f -li n g. 



* 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I. In Ambush ..... i 
II. Slaves of the Lamp — Part I. . .44 

III. An Unsavory Interlude ... 74 

IV. The Impressionists . . . .115 

V. The Moral Reformers . . . 149 

VI. A Little Prep. . . . .182 

VII. The Flag of Their Country . . 215 

VIII. The Last Term .... 249 

IX. Slaves of the Lamp — Part II. . 281 



“IN AMBUSH.” 


In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the 
furze-hill behind the College— little lairs whittled 
out of the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, 
odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were 
strictly forbidden, palaces of delight. And for the 
fifth summer in succession, Stalky, McTurk, and 
Beetle (this was before they reached the dignity of 
a study) had built like beavers a place of retreat and 
meditation, where they smoked. 

Now, there was nothing in their characters as 
known to Mr. Prout, their house-master, at 
all commanding respect ; nor did Foxy, the subtle 
red-haired school Sergeant, trust them. His busi- 
ness was to wear tennis-shoes, carry binoculars, 
and swoop hawklike upon evil boys. Had he 
taken the field alone, that hut would have been 
raided, for Foxy knew the manners of his quarry ; 
but Providence moved Mr. Prout, whose school- 
name, derived from the size of his feet, was Hoofer, 
to investigate on his own account ; and it was the 
cautious Stalky who found the track of his pugs on 

[i] 


STALKY & CO. 


the very floor of their lair one peaceful afternoon 
when Stalky would fain have forgotten Prout and 
his works in a volume of Surtees and a new briar- 
wood pipe. Crusoe, at sight of the footprint, did 
not act more swiftly than Stalky. He removed the 
pipes, swept up all loose match-ends, and departed 
to warn Beetle and McTurk. 

But it was characteristic of the boy that he did 
not approach his allies till he had met and con- 
ferred with little Hartopp, President of the Nat- 
ural History Society, an institution which Stalky 
held in contempt. Hartopp was more than sur- 
prised when the boy meekly, as he knew how, 
begged to propose himself, Beetle, and McTurk as 
candidates ; confessed to a long-smothered inter- 
est in first- flowerings, early butterflies, and new 
arrivals, and volunteered, if Mr. Hartopp saw 
fit, to enter on the new life at once. Being a 
master, Hartopp was suspicious ; but he was 
yalso an enthusiast, and his gentle little soul had 
been galled by chance-heard remarks from the 
three, and specially Beetle. So he was gracious 
to that repentant sinner, and entered the three 
names in his book. 

Then, and not till then, did Stalky seek Beetle 
and McTurk in their house form-room. They were 
stowing away books for a quiet afternoon in the 
furze, which they called the “ wuzzy . 5 5 

[ 2 ] 


“IN AMBUSH.” 


“All up,” said Stalky, serenely. “I spotted 
Heffy’s fairy feet round our hut after dinner. 
’Blessing they’re so big.” 

“Con-found! Did you hide our pipes?” said 
Beetle. 

“ Oh, no. Left ’em in the middle of the hut, of 
course. What a blind ass you are, Beetle ! D’you 
think nobody thinks but yourself? Well, we 
can’t use the hut any more. Hoofer will be 
watchin’ it.” 

“ ‘ Bother ! Likewise blow ! said McTurk 
thoughtfully, unpacking the volumes with which his 
chest was cased. The boys carried their libraries 
between their belt and their collar. “Nice job ! 
This means we’re under suspicion for the rest of 
the term.” 

“Why? All that Heffy has found is a hut. 
He and Foxy will watch it. It’s nothing to do 
with us ; only we mustn’t be seen that way for 
a bit.” 

“Yes, and where else are we to go ? ” said Beetle. 
“You chose that place, too — an’ — an’ I wanted to 
read this afternoon.” 

Stalky sat on a desk drumming his heels on the 
form. 

“ You’re a despondin’ brute, Beetle. Sometimes 
I think I shall have to drop you altogether. Did 
you ever know your Uncle Stalky forget you yet? 

[ 3 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


His rebus infectis — after I’d seen Heffy’s man-tracks 
marchin’ round our hut, I found little Hartopp — 
destricto ense — wavin’ a butterfly-net. I conciliated 
Hartopp. ’Told him that you’d read papers to the 
Bug-hunters if he’d let you join, Beetle. ’Told him 
you liked butterflies, Turkey. Anyhow, I soothed 
the Hartoffles, and we’re Bug-hunters now.” 

“ What’s the good of that? ” said Beetle. 

“ Oh, Turkey, kick him! ” 

In the interests of science bounds were largely 
relaxed for the members of the Natural History 
Society. They could wander, if they kept clear of 
all houses, practically where they chose ; Mr. Har- 
topp holding himself responsible for their good con- 
duct. 

Beetle began to see this as McTurk began the 
kicking. 

“I’m an ass, Stalky!” he said, guarding the 
afflicted part. “ Pax , Turkey. I’m an ass.” 

“Don’t stop, Turkey. Isn’t your Uncle Stalky 
a great man ? ’ ’ 

“ Great man,” said Beetle. 

“All the same bug-huntin’s a filthy business,” 
said McTurk. “ How the deuce does one begin ? ” 

“This way,” said Stalky, turning to some fags’ 
lockers behind him. “Fags are dabs at Natural 
History. Here’ s young Braybrooke’s botany-case. ’ ’ 
He flung out a tangle of decayed roots and adjusted 
[ 4 ] 


“IN AMBUSH.” 


the slide. “ ’Gives one no end of a professional air, 
I think. Here’s Clay Minor’s geological hammer. 
Beetle can carry that. Turkey, you’d better covet 
a butterfly-net from somewhere.” 

“I’m blowed if I do,” said McTurk, simply, 
with immense feeling. “ Beetle, give me the 
hammer. ’ ’ 

“All right. /’ m not proud. Chuck us down 
that net on top of the lockers, Stalky.” 

“ That’s all right. It’s a collapsible jamboree, 
too. Beastly luxurious dogs these fags are. Built 
like a fishin’-rod. ’Pon my sainted Sam, but we 
look the complete Bug-hunters ! Now, listen to 
your Uncle Stalky! We’re goin’ along the cliffs 
after butterflies. Yery few chaps come there. 
We’re goin’ to leg it, too. You’d better leave 
your book behind. ’ ’ 

“Not much!” said Beetle, firmly. “I’m not 
goin’ to be done out of my fun for a lot of filthy 
butterflies.” 

“ Then you’ll sweat horrid. You’d better carry 
my Jorrocks. ’Twon’t make you any hotter.” 

They all sweated ; for Stalky led them at a smart 
trot west away along the cliffs under the furze-hills, 
crossing combe after gorzy combe. They took no 
heed to flying rabbits or fluttering fritillaries, and 
all that Turkey said of geology was utterly un- 
quotable. 


[ 5 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Are we going to Clovelly ? ” he puffed at last, 
and they flung themselves down on the short, 
springy turf between the drone of the sea below 
and the light summer wind among the inland trees. 
They were looking into a combe half full of old, 
high furze in gay bloom that ran up to a fringe of 
brambles and a dense wood of mixed timber and 
hollies. It was as though one-half the combe were 
filled with golden fire to the cliff’s edge. The side 
nearest to them was open grass, and fairly bristled 
with notice-boards. 

“ Fee-rocious old cove, this,” said Stalky, reading 
the nearest. “ ‘ Prosecuted with the utmost rigour of 
the law. G . M . Dobney , Col J.P . ,’ an’ all the rest 
of it. ’Don’t seem to me that any chap in his 
senses would trespass here, does it? ” 

“ You’ve got to prove damage ’fore you can 
prosecute for anything! ’Can’t prosecute for tres- 
pass,” said McTurk, whose father held many acres 
in Ireland. “ That’s all rot! ” 

“ Glad of that, ’cause this looks like what we 
wanted. Kot straight across, Beetle, you blind 
lunatic! Anyone could spot us half a mile off. 
This way ; and furl up your beastly butterfly- 
net.” 

Beetle disconnected the ring, thrust the net into a 
pocket, shut up the handle to a two-foot stave, and 
slid the cane-ring round his waist. Stalky led in- 
[ 6 ] 


‘ £ I N AMBUSH.” 


land to the wood, which was, perhaps, a quarter of 
a mile from the sea, and reached the fringe of the 
brambles. 

“ Now we can get straight down through the 
furze, and never show up at all,” said the tactician. 
‘ c Beetle, go ahead and explore. Snf ! Snf ! Beastl y 
stink of fox somewhere! ” 

On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, 
Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently an- 
nounced between grunts of pain that he had found 
a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, 
since Stalky pinched him a ter go, Down that tun- 
nel they crawled. It was evidently a highway for 
the inhabitants of the combe ; and, to their inex- 
pressible joy, ended, at the very edge of the cliff, in 
a few square feet of dry turf walled and roofed with 
impenetrable gorse. 

“By gum! There isn’t a single thing to do ex- 
cept lie down,” said Stalky, returning a knife to his 
pocket. “ Look here ! ” 

He parted the tough stems before him, and it was 
as a window opened on a far view of Lundy, and the 
deep sea sluggishly nosing the pebbles a couple of 
hundred feet below. They could hear young jack- 
daws squawking on the ledges, the hiss and jabber 
of a nest of hawks somewhere out of sight; and, 
with great deliberation, Stalky spat on to the back 
of a young rabbit sunning himself far down where 

[ 7 ] 


a 


STALKY & CO. 


only a cliff-rabbit could have found foot-hold. Great 
gray and black gulls screamed against the jackdaws ; 
the heavy-scented acres of bloom round them were 
alive with low-nesting birds, singing or silent as the 
shadow of the wheeling hawks passed and returned ; 
and on the naked turf across the combe rabbits 
thumped and frolicked. 

“Whew! What a place! Talk of natural his- 
tory; this is it,” said Stalky, filling himself a pipe. 
“Isn’t it scrumptious? Good old sea!” He spat 
again approvingly, and was silent. 

McTurk and Beetle had taken out their books and 
were lying on their stomachs, chin in hand. The 
sea snored and gurgled; the birds, scattered for the 
moment by these new animals, returned to their 
businesses, and the boys read on in the rich, warm, 
sleepy silence. 

“Hullo, here’s a keeper,” said Stalky, shutting 
“Handley Cross” cautiously, and peering through 
the jungle. A man with a gun appeared on the 
sky-line to the east. “Confound him, he’s going 
to sit down.” 

“ He’d swear we were poachin’, too,” said Beetle. 
“What’s the good of pheasants’ eggs? They’re 
always addled, too.” 

“Might as well get up to the wood, I think,” 
said Stalky. “We don’t want G. M. Dabney, Col., 
J.P., to be bothered about us so soon. Up the 
[ 8 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH. ” 


wuzzy and keep quiet! He may have followed us, 
you know.” 

Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They 
heard him gasp indescribably : there was the crash 
of a heavy body leaping through the furze. 

“ Aie ! yeou little red rascal. I see yeou !” The 
keeper threw the gun to his shoulder, and fired 
both barrels in their direction. The pellets dusted 
the dry stems round them as a big fox plunged be- 
tween Stalky’s legs, and ran over the cliff-edge. 

They said nothing till they reached the wood, 
torn, dishevelled, hot, but unseen. 

“ Harrow squeak,” said Stalky. “I’ll swear 
some of the pellets went through my hair.” 

“ Did you see him ? ” said Beetle. “ I almost put 
my hand on him. Wasn’t he a wopper ! Didn’t 
he stink ! Hullo, Turkey, what’s the matter? Are 
you hit ? ” 

McTurk’s lean face had turned pearly white ; his 
mouth, generally half open, was tight shut, and his 
eyes blazed. They had never seen him like this save . 
once in a sad time of civil war. 

“ Do you know that that was just as bad as mur- 
der?” he said, in a grating voice, as he brushed 
prickles from his head. 

“ Well, he didn’t hit us,” said Stalky. “I think 
it was rather a lark. Here, where are you going ? ” 

“I’m going up to the house, if there is one,” said 

[ 9 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


McTurk, pushing through the hollies. “ I am go- 
ing to tell this Colonel Dabney.’ ’ 

“Are you crazy? He’ll swear it served us jolly 
well right. He’ll report us. It’ll be a public 
lickin’. Oh, Turkey, don’t be an ass! Think of 
us ! ” 

u You fool!” said McTurk, turning savagely. 
“D’you suppose I’m thinkin’ of us f It’s the 
keeper. ’ ’ 

“He’s cracked,” said Beetle, miserably, as they 
followed. Indeed, this was a new Turkey — a 
haughty, angular, nose-lifted Turkey — whom they 
accompanied through a shrubbery on to a lawn, 
where a white-whiskered old gentleman with a cleek 
was alternately putting and blaspheming vigor- 
ously. 

“Are you Colonel Dabney?” McTurk began in 
this new creaking voice of his. 

“ I — I am, and — ” his eyes traveled up and down 
the boy — “who — what the devil d’you want? 
Ye’ve been disturbing my pheasants. Don’t at- 
tempt to deny it. Ye needn’t laugh at it.” (Mc- 
Turk’s not too lovely features had twisted them- 
selves into a horrible sneer at the word pheasant.) 
“You’ve been birds’ -nesting. You needn’t hide 
your hat. I can see that you belong to the College. 
Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye do ! Your name 
and number at once, sir. Ye want to speak to me 
[ 10 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH.” 


—Eh? You saw my notice-boards? Must have. 
Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did ! Damnable, oh 
damnable ! ” 

He choked with emotion. McTurk’s heel tapped 
the lawn and he stuttered a little — two sure signs 
that he was losing his temper. But why should he, 
the offender, be angry ? 

“Lo-look here, sir. Do — do you shoot foxes? 
Because, if you don’t, your keeper does. TVe’ve 
seen him ! I do-don’t care what you call us — but 
it’s an awful thing. It’s the ruin of good feelin’ 
among neighbors. A ma-man ought to say once 
and for all how he stands about preservin’. It’s 
worse than murder, because there’s no legal rem- 
edy.” McTurk was quoting confusedly from his 
father, while the old gentleman made noises in his 
throat. 

“ Do you know who I am? ” he gurgled at last; 
Stalky and Beetle quaking. 

“No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the 
Castle itself. Answer me now, as one gentleman 
to another. Do ye shoot foxes or do ye not ? ” 

And four years before Stalky and Beetle had care- 
fully kicked McTurk out of his Irish dialect ! As- 
suredly he had gone mad or taken a sunstroke, and 
as assuredly he would be slain — once by the old gen- 
tleman and once by the Head. A public licking 
for the three was the least they could expect. Yet 
[ 11 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


— if their eyes and ears were to be trusted — the old 
gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before 

the storm, but 

“ I do not.” He was still gurgling. 

* ‘Then you must sack your keeper. He’s not 
fit to live in the same county with a God-fearin’ 
fox. An’ a vixen, too — at this time o’ year ! ” 

“ Did ye come up on purpose to tell me this ? ” 

“ Of course I did, ye silly man,” with a stamp of 
the foot. “ Would you not have done as much for 
me if you’d seen that thing happen on my land, 
now? ” 

Forgotten — forgotten was the College and the 
decency due to elders ! McTurk was treading again 
the barren purple mountains of the rainy West 
coast, where in his holidays he was viceroy of four 
thousand naked acres, only son of a three-hundred- 
year-old house, lord of a crazy fishing-boat, and the 
idol of his father’s shiftless tenantry. It was the 
landed man speaking to his equal — deep calling to 
deep — and the old gentleman acknowledged the 
cry. 

“I apologize,” said he. “I apologize unre- 
servedly — to you, and to the Old Country. How, 
will you be good enough to tell me your story ? ” 
“We were in your combe,” McTurk began, and 
he told his tale alternately as a schoolboy and, 
when the iniquity of the thing overcame him, as an 
[ 12 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH.” 


indignant squire; concluding: “ So you see he must 
be in the habit of it. I — we — one never wants to 
accuse a neighbor’s man; but I took the liberty in 
this case ” 

“I see. Quite so. For a reason ye had. In- 
famous — oh, infamous ! ” The two had fallen into 
step beside each other on the lawn, and Colonel 
Dabney was talking as one man to another. “ This 
comes of promoting a fisherman — a fisherman — from 
his lobster-pots. It’s enough to ruin the reputation 
of an archangel. Don’t attempt to deny it. It is ! 
Your father has brought you up well. He has. 
I’d much like the pleasure of his acquaintance. 
Yery much, indeed. And these young gentlemen ? 
English they are. Don’t attempt to deny it. They 
came up with you, too ? Extraordinary ! Extra- 
ordinary, now ! In the present state of education 
I shouldn’t have thought any three boys would be 
well enough grounded. . . . But out of the 

mouths of No — no ! Not that by any odds. 

Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye’re not ! Sherry 
always catches me under the liver, but — beer, now ? 
Eh? What d’you say to beer, and something to 
eat ? It’s long since I was a boy — abominable nui- 
sances; but exceptions prove the rule. And a vixen, 
too ! ” 

They were fed on the terrace by a gray-haired 
housekeeper. Stalky and Beetle merely ate, but 
[ 13 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


McTurk with bright eyes continued a free and lofty 
discourse ; and ever the old gentleman treated him 
as a brother. 

“My dear man, of course ye can come again. 
Did I not say exceptions prove the rule? The 
lower combe? Man, dear, anywhere ye please, so 
long as you do not disturb my pheasants. The two 
are not incompatible. Don’t attempt to deny it. 
They’re not! I’ll never allow another gun, though. 
Come and go as ye please. I’ll not see you, and ye 
needn’t see me. Ye’ve been well brought up. An- 
other glass of beer, now ? I tell you a fisherman he 
was and a fisherman he shall be to-night again. He 
shall ! Wish I could drown him. I’ll convoy you 
to the Lodge. My people are not precisely — ah — 
broke to boy, but they’ll know you again.” 

He dismissed them with many compliments by the 
high Lodge-gate in the split-oak park palings and 
they stood still; even Stalky, who had played sec- 
ond, not to say a dumb, fiddle, regarding McTurk 
as one from another world. The two glasses of 
strong home-brewed had brought a melancholy 
upon the boy, for, slowly strolling with his hands 
in his pockets, he crooned: — “ Oh, Paddy dear, and 
did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round? ” 

Under other circumstances Stalky and Beetle 
would have fallen upon him, for that song was 
barred utterly — anathema — the sin of witchcraft. 

[ 14 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH.” 


But seeing what he had wrought, they danced 
round him in silence, waiting till it pleased him to 
touch earth. 

The tea-bell rang when they were still half a mile 
from. College. McTurk shivered and came out of 
dreams. The glory of his holiday estate had left 
him. He was a Colleger of the College, speaking 
English once more. 

“ Turkey, it was immense ! ” said Stalky, gener- 
ously. “ I didn’t know you had it in you. You’ve 
got us a hut for the rest of the term, where we sim- 
ply can't be collared. Fids ! Fids ! Oh, Fids ! 
I gloat ! Hear me gloat ! ” 

They spun wildly on their heels, jodeling after 
the accepted manner of a “ gloat,” which is not un- 
remotely allied to the primitive man’s song of tri- 
umph, and dropped down the hill by the path from 
the gasometer just in time to meet their house-mas- 
ter, who had spent the afternoon watching their 
abandoned hut in the “ wuzzy.” 

Unluckily, all Mr. Prout’s imagination leaned to 
the darker side of life, and he looked on those 
young-eyed cherubims most sourly. Boys that he 
understood attended house-matches and could be 
accounted for at any moment. But he had heard 
McTurk openly deride cricket — even house- matches ; 
Beetle’s views on the honor of the house he knew 
were incendiary ; and he could never tell when the 
[ 15 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


soft and smiling Stalky was laughing at him. 
Consequently — since human nature is what it is — 
those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He 
hoped it was nothing very serious, but . . . 

“ Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu ! I gloat ! Hear me!” Stalky, 
still on his heels, whirled like a dancing dervish to 
the dining-hall. 

“ Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu ! I gloat ! Hear me ! ” Beetle 
spun behind him with outstretched arms. 

“Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me ! ” Mc- 
Turk’s voice cracked. 

Now was there or was there not a distinct flavor 
of beer as they shot past Mr. Prout ? 

He was unlucky in that his conscience as a house- 
master impelled him to consult his associates. Had 
he taken his pipe and his troubles to little Har- 
topp’s rooms he would, perhaps, have been saved 
confusion, for Hartopp believed in boys, and knew 
something about them. His fate led him to King, 
a fellow house-master, no friend of his, but a zealous 
hater of Stalky & Co. 

“ Ah-haa ! ” said King, rubbing his hands when 
the tale was told. “ Curious ! How my house 
never dream of doing these things.” 

“But you see I’ve no proof, exactly.” 

“ Proof? With the egregious Beetle ! As if one 
wanted it ! I suppose it is not impossible for the 
Sergeant to supply it ? Foxy is considered at least 
[ 16 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH.” 


a match for any evasive boy in my house. Of course 
they were smoking and drinking somewhere. That 
type of boy always does. They think it manly. 5 ’ 

“ But they’ve no following in the school, and they 
are distinctly — er — brutal to their juniors,” said 
Prout, who had from a distance seen Beetle return, 
with interest, his butterfly-net to a tearful fag. 

“Ah! They consider themselves superior to 
ordinary delights. Self-sufficient little animals ! 
There’s something in McTurk’s Hibernian sneer 
that would make me a little annoyed. And they 
are so careful to avoid all overt acts, too. It’s 
sheer calculated insolence. I am strongly opposed, 
as you know, to interfering with another man’s 
house; but they need a lesson, Prout. They need 
a sharp lesson, if only to bring down their over- 
weening self-conceit. Were I you, I should devote 
myself for a week to their little performances. 
Boys of that order — and I may flatter myself, but I 
think I know boys — don’t join the Bug-hunters for 
love. Tell the Sergeant to keep his eye open ; and, 
of course, in my peregrinations I may casually keep 
mine open, too.” 

“ Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu / I gloat! Hear me!” far 
down the corridor. 

“ Disgusting ! ” said King. “Where do they 
pick up these obscene noises ? One sharp lesson is 
what they want.” 


[171 


STALKY & CO. 


The boys did not concern themselves with lessons 
for the next few days. They had all Colonel Dab- 
ney’s estate to play with, and they explored it with 
the stealth of Red Indians and the accuracy of 
burglars. They could enter either by the Lodge- 
gates on the upper road — they were careful to in- 
gratiate themselves with the Lodge-keeper and his 
wife — drop down into the combe, and return along 
the cliffs; or they could begin at the combe, and 
climb up into the road. 

They were careful not to cross the Colonel’s path 
— he had served his turn, and they would not out- 
wear their welcome — nor did they show up on the 
sky-line when they could move in cover. The shel- 
ter of the gorze by the cliff-edge was their chosen 
retreat. Beetle christened it the Pleasant Isle of 
Aves, for the peace and the shelter of it ; and here, 
the pipes and tobacco once cached in a convenient 
ledge an arm’s length down the cliff, their position 
was legally unassailable. 

For, observe, Colonel Dabney had not invited 
them to enter his house. Therefore, they did not 
need to ask specific leave to go visiting; and school 
rules were strict on that point. He had merely 
thrown open his grounds to them; and, since they 
were lawful Bug-hunters, their extended bounds ran 
up to his notice-boards in the combe and his Lodge- 
gates on the hill. 


[ 18 ] 


“IN AMBUSH.” 


They were amazed at their own virtue. 

“ And even if it wasn’t, 5 ’ said Stalky, flat on his 
back, staring into the blue. “ Even suppose we 
were miles out of bounds, no one could get at us 
through this wuzzy, unless he knew the tunnel. 
Isn’t this better than lyin’ up just behind the Coll. 
— in a blue funk every time we had a smoke ? Isn’t 
your Uncle Stalky ? ” 

‘‘No,” said Beetle — he was stretched at the edge 
of the cliff spitting thoughtfully. “We’ve got to 
thank Turkey for this. Turkey is the Great Man. 
Turkey, dear, you’re distressing Heffles.” 

“ Gloomy old ass ! ” said McTurk, deep in a 
book. 

“They’ve got us under suspicion,” said Stalky. 
“Hoophats is so suspicious somehow; and Foxy 
always makes every stalk he does a sort of — sort 
of ” 

“ Scalp, ” said Beetle. “Foxy’s a giddy Chin- 
gangook.” 

“Poor Foxy,” said Stalky. “He’s goin’ to 
catch us one of these days. ’ Said to me in the Gym 
last night, ‘I’ve got my eye on you, Mister Cork- 
ran. I’m only warning you for your good. ’ Then 
I said: ‘Well, you jolly well take it off again, or 
you’ll get into trouble. I’m only warnin’ you for 
your good . 9 Foxy was wrath. ’ ’ 

“Yes, but it’s only fair sport for Foxy,” said 
[ 19 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Beetle. 4 £ It’s Hefflelinga that has the evil mind. 
'Shouldn’t wonder if he thought we got tight.” 

“I never got squiffy but once — that was in the 
holidays,” said Stalky, reflectively; “an’ it made 
me horrid sick. ’Pon my sacred Sam, though, it’s 
enough to drive a man to drink, havin’ an animal 
like Hoof for house-master.” 

“If we attended the matches an’ yelled, ‘Well 
hit, sir,’ an’ stood on one leg an’ grinned every 
time Heffy said, ‘ So ho, my sons. Is it thus ? ’ an’ 
said, ‘Yes, sir,’ an’ ‘Ho, sir,’ an’ ‘ 0, sir,’ an’ 
‘Please, sir,’ like a lot o’ filthy fa-ags, Heffy ’ud 
think no end of us,” said McTurk with a sneer. 

“ Too late to begin that.” 

“It’s all right. The Hefflelinga means well. 
But he is an ass. And we show him that we think 
he’s an ass. An’ so Heffy don’t love us. ’Told me 
last night after prayers that he was in loco pa- 
rentis ,” Beetle grunted. 

“The deuce he did!” cried Stalky. “That 
means he’s maturin’ something unusual dam’ mean. 
Last time he told me that he gave me three hundred 
lines for dancin’ the cachuca in Humber Ten dor- 
mitory. Loco parentis , by gum ! But what’s the 
odds as long as you’re ’appy? We’re all right.” 

They were, and their very rightness puzzled 
Prout, King, and the Sergeant. Boys with bad 
consciences show it. They slink out past the Fives 
[ 20 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH.” 


Court in haste, and smile nervously when ques- 
tioned. They return, disordered, in bare time to 
save a call-over. They nod and wink and giggle 
one to the other, scattering at the approach of a 
master. But Stalky and his allies had long out- 
lived these manifestations of youth. They strolled 
forth unconcernedly, and returned in excellent 
shape after a light refreshment of strawberries and 
cream at the Lodge. 

The Lodge-keeper had been promoted to keeper, 
vice the murderous fisherman, and his wife made 
much of the boys. The man, too, gave them a 
squirrel, which they presented to the Natural His- 
tory Society; thereby checkmating little Hartopp, 
who wished to know what they were doing for 
Science. Foxy faithfully worked some deep Devon 
lanes behind a lonely cross-roads inn; and it was 
curious that Prout and King, members of Common- 
room seldom friendly, walked together in the same 
direction — that is to say, northeast. Now, the 
Pleasant Isle of Aves lay due southwest. 

4 ‘They’re deep — day-vilish deep,” said Stalky. 
“ Why are they drawin’ those covers? ” 

“Me,” said Beetle sweetly. “I asked Foxy if 
he had ever tasted the beer there. That was 
enough for Foxy, and it cheered him up a little. 
He and Heffy were sniffin’ round our old hut so 
long I thought they’d like a change.” 

[ 21 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“Well, it can’t last forever,” said Stalky. 
“Heffy’s bankin’ up like a thunder-cloud, an’ King 
goes rubbin’ his beastly hands, an’ grinnin’ like a 
hyena. It’s shockin’ demoralizin’ for King. He’ll 
burst some day.” 

That day came a little sooner than they expected 
— came when the Sergeant, whose duty it was to 
collect defaulters, did not attend an afternoon call- 
over. 

“ Tired of pubs, eh ? He’s gone up to the top of 
the hill with his binoculars to spot us, ’ ’ said Stalky. 
“Wonder he didn’t think of that before. Did you 
see old Heffy cock his eye at us when we answered 
our names? Heffy’s in it, too. Ti-rcc-la-la-i-tu ! 
I gloat ! Hear me ! Come on ! ” 

“ Aves ? ” said Beetle. 

“Of course, but I’m not smokin’ aujourd' hui. 
Parceque je jolly well jpense that we’ll be suivi . 
We’ll go along the cliffs, slow, an’ give Foxy lots 
of time to parallel us up above.” 

They strolled towards the swimming-baths, and 
presently overtook King. 

“ Oh, don’t let me interrupt you,” he said. “ En- 
gaged in scientific pursuits, of course ? I trust you 
will enjoy yourselves, my young friends.” 

“You see ! ” said Stalky, when they were out of 
ear-shot. “ He can't keep a secret. He’s followin’ 
to cut off our line of retreat. He’ll wait at the 
[ 22 ] 


“IN AMBUSH.” 


baths till Heffy comes along. They’ve tried every 
blessed place except along the cliffs, and now they 
think they’ve bottled us. No need to hurry.” 

They walked leisurely over the combes till they 
reached the line of notice-boards. 

“ Listen a shake. Foxy’s up wind cornin’ down 
hill like beans. When you hear him move in the 
bushes, go straight across to Aves. They want to 
catch flagrante delicto .” 

They dived into the gorse at right angles to the 
tunnel, openly crossing the grass, and lay still in 
Aves. 

“What did I tell you?” Stalky carefully put 
away the pipes and tobacco. The Sergeant, out of 
breath, was leaning against the fence, raking the 
furze with his binoculars, but he might as well have 
tried to see through a sand-bag. Anon, Prout and 
King appeared behind him. They conferred. 

“Aha! Foxy don’t like the notice-boards, and 
he don’t like the prickles either. Now we’ll cut up 
the tunnel and go to the Lodge. Hullo ! They’ve 
sent Foxy into cover.” 

The Sergeant was waist-deep in crackling, sway- 
ing furze, his ears filled with the noise of his own 
progress. The boys reached the shelter of the 
wood and looked down through a belt of hollies. 

“ Hellish noise ! ” said Stalky, critically. “ ’Don’t 
think Colonel Dabney will like it. I move we go 
f 23] 


3 


STALKY & CO. 


into the Lodge and get something to eat. We might 
as well see the fun out. ’ 9 

Suddenly the keeper passed them at a trot. 

“ Who’m they to combe-bottom for Lard’s sake? 
Master’ll be crazy,” he said. 

“ Poachers simly,” Stalky replied in the broad 
Devon that was the boy’s langue de guerre. 

“ I’ll poach ’em to raights ! ” He dropped into 
the funnel-like combe, which presently began to fill 
with noises, notably King’s voice crying: “ Go on, 
Sergeant ! Leave him alone, you, sir. He is exe- 
cuting my orders.” 

“ Who’m yeou to give arders here, gingy whis- 
kers? Yeou come up to the master. Come out o’ 
that wuzzy ! [This is to the Sergeant.] Yiss, I 
reckon us knows the boys yeou’m after. They’ve 
tu long ears an’ vuzzy bellies, an’ you nippies they 
in yeour pockets when they’m dead. Come on 
up to master! He’ll boy yeou all you’m a mind 
to. Yeou other folk bide your side fence.” 

“Explain to the proprietor. You can explain, 
Sergeant,” shouted King. Evidently the Sergeant 
had surrendered to the major force. 

Beetle lay at full length on the turf behind the 
Lodge, literally biting the earth in spasms of joy. 

Stalky kicked him upright. There was nothing 
of levity about Stalky or McTurk save a stray mus- 
cle twitching on the cheek. 

[ 24 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH.” 


They tapped at the Lodge door, where they were 
always welcome. 

“ Come yeou right in an’ set down, my little 
dearrs,” said the woman. “ They’ll niver touch 
my man. He’ll poach ’em to rights. Iss fai ! 
Fresh berries an’ cream. Us Dartymoor folk niver 
forgit their friends. But them Bidevor poachers, 
they’ve no hem to their garments. Sugar? My 
man heVe digged a badger for yeou, my dearrs. 
’Tis in the linhay in a box.” 

“ Us’ll take un with us when we’m finished 
here. I reckon yeou’m busy. We’ll bide here an’ 
— ’tis washin’ day with yeou, simly,” said Stalky. 
“We’m no company to make all vitty for. Never 
yeou mind us. Yiss. There’s plenty cream.” 

The woman withdrew, wiping her pink hands on 
her apron, and left them in the parlor. There 
was a scuffle of feet on the gravel outside the 
heavily-1 eaded diamond panes, and then the voice 
of Colonel Dabney, something clearer than a 
bugle. 

“Ye can read? You’ve eyes in your head? 
Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye have ! ” 

Beetle snatched a crochet-work antimacassar from 
the shiny horsehair sofa, stuffed it into his mouth, 
and rolled out of sight. 

“You saw my notice-boards. Your duty? 
Curse your impudence, sir. Your duty was to keep 
[ 25 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


off my grounds. Talk of duty to me! Why— 
why — why, ye misbegotten poacher, ye’ll be teach- 
ing me my ABC next ! Roarin’ like a bull in 
the bushes down there ! Boys ? Boys ? Boys ? 
Keep your boys at home, then ! I’m not responsi- 
ble for your boys ! But I don’t believe it — I don’t 
believe a word of it. Ye’ve a furtive look in your 
eye — a furtive, sneakin’, poachin’ look in your eye, 
that ’ud ruin the reputation of an archangel ! 
Don’t attempt to deny it I Ye have ! A sergeant ? 
More shame to you, then, an’ the worst bargain 
Her Majesty ever made ! A sergeant, to run about 
the country poachin’ — on your pension ! Dam- 
nable ! Oh, damnable ! But I’ll be considerate. 
I’ll be merciful. By gad, I’ll be the very essence 
o’ humanity ! Did ye, or did ye not, see my 
notice-boards? Don’t attempt to deny it! Ye 
did. Silence, Sergeant ! ” 

Twenty-one years in the army had left their mark 
on Foxy. He obeyed. 

41 4 How. March!” 

The high Lodge gate shut with a clang. 44 My 
duty ! A sergeant to tell me my duty! ” puffed 
Colonel Dabney. 44 Good Lard ! more sergeants ! ” 
44 It’s King! It’s King!” gulped Stalky, his 
head on the horsehair pillow. McTurk was eating 
the rag-carpet before the speckless hearth, and the 
sofa heaved to the emotions of Beetle. Through 
[ 26 ] 


" IN AMBUSH.” 


the thick glass the figures without showed blue, 
distorted, and menacing. 

“I — I protest against this outrage.” King had 
evidently been running up hill. “ The man was 
entirely within his duty. Let — let me give you my 
card.” 

“He’s in flannels!” Stalky buried his head 
again. 

“ Unfortunately — most unfortunately — I have not 
one with me, but my name is King, sir, a house- 
master of the CoUege, and you wifi find me pre- 
pared — fuUy prepared — to answer for this man’s 
action. We’ve seen three ” 

“ Did ye see my notice-boards? ” 

“ I admit we did; but under the circumstances — ” 

“I stand in loco parentis.” Prout’s deep voice 
was added to the discussion. They could hear him 
pant. 

“ F’what? ” Colonel Dabney was growing more 
and more Irish. 

“ I’m responsible for the boys under my charge.” 

“ Ye are, are ye? Then all I can say is that ye 
set them a very bad example — a dam’ bad example, 
if I may say so. I do not own your boys. I’ve 
not seen your boys, an’ I tell you that if there was 
a boy grinnin’ in every bush on the place, still ye’ve 
no shadow of a right here, cornin’ up from the 
combe that way, an’ frightenin’ everything in it. 

[ 27 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did. Ye should 
have come to the Lodge an’ seen me like Christians, 
instead of chasin’ your dam’ boys through the 
length and breadth of my covers. In loco parentis 
ye are? Well, I’ve not forgotten my Latin either, 
an’ I’ll say to you: ‘ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. ’ 
If the masters trespass, how can we blame the 
boys? ” 

“But if I could speak to you privately,” said 
Prout. 

“I’ll have nothing private with you ! Ye can be 
as private as ye please on the other side o’ that gate 
an’ — I wish ye a very good afternoon.” 

A second time the gate clanged. They waited 
till Colonel Dabney had returned to the house, and 
fell into one another’s arms, crowing for breath. 

“ Oh, my Soul ! Oh, my King ! Oh, my Heffy ! 
Oh, my Foxy ! Zeal, all zeal, Mr. Simple.” 
Stalky wiped his eyes. “ Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! — ‘ I did 
boil the exciseman ! ’ We must get out of this or 
we’ll be late for tea.” 

“Ge — ge — get the badger and make little Har- 
topp happy. Ma — ma — make ’em all happy,” 
sobbed McTurk, groping for the door and kicking 
the prostrate Beetle before him. 

They found the beast in an evil-smelling box, left 
two half-crowns for payment, and staggered home. 
Only the badger grunted most marvelous like 
[ 28 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH.” 


Colonel Dabney, and they dropped him twice or 
thrice with shrieks of helpless laughter. They 
were but imperfectly recovered when Foxy met 
them by the Fives Court with word that they were 
to go up to their dormitory and wait till sent 
for. 

“Well, take this box to Mr. Hartopp’s rooms, 
then. We’ve done something for the Natural His- 
tory Society, at any rate,” said Beetle. 

“ ’Fraid that won’t save you, young gen’elmen,” 
Foxy answered, in an awful voice. He was sorely 
ruffled in his mind. 

“Allsereno, Foxibus.” Stalky had reached the 
extreme stage of hiccups. “We — we’ll never de- 
sert you, Foxy. Hounds choppin’ foxes in cover is 
more a proof of vice, ain’t it ? . . . No, you’re 

right. I’m — I’m not quite well.” 

“They’ve gone a bit too far this time,” Fox}^ 
thought to himself. “Yery far gone, I'd say, 
excep’ there was no smell of liquor. An’ yet it 
isn’t like ’em — somehow. King and Prout they 
’ad their dressin’-down same as me. That’s one 
comfort. ’ ’ 

“Now, we must pull up,” said Stalky, rising 
from the bed on which he had thrown him- 
self. “We’re injured innocence — as usual. We 
don’t know what we’ve been sent up here for, do 
we?” 


[ 29 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ No explanation. Deprived of tea. Public dis- 
grace before the house,” said McTurk, whose eyes 
were running over. “ It’s dam’ serious.” 

“ Well, hold on, till King loses his temper,” said 
Beetle. “ He’s a libelous old rip, an’ he’ll be in a 
ravin’ paddy- wack. Prout’s too beastly cautious. 
Keep your eye on King, and, if he gives us a 
chance, appeal to the Head. That always makes 
’em sick.” 

They were summoned to their house-master’s 
study, King and Foxy supporting Prout, and Foxy 
had three canes under his arm. King leered tri- 
umphantly, for there were tears, undried tears of 
mirth, on the boys’ cheeks. Then the examination 
began. 

Yes, they had walked along the cliffs. Yes, they 
had entered Colonel Dabney’s grounds. Yes, they 
had seen the notice-boards (at this point Beetle 
sputtered hysterically). For what purpose had they 
entered Colonel Dabney’s grounds? “Well, sir, 
there was a badger.” 

Here King, who loathed the Natural History 
Society because he did not like Hartopp, could no 
longer be restrained. He begged them not to add 
mendacity to open insolence. But the badger was 
in Mr. Hartopp’s rooms, sir. The Sergeant had 
kindly taken it up for them. That disposed of the 
badger, and the temporary check brought Kang’s 
[ 30 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH.” 


temper to boiling-point. They could hear his foot 
on the floor while Prout prepared his lumbering in- 
quiries. They had settled into their stride now. 
Their eyes ceased to sparkle; their faces were 
blank; their hands hung beside them without a 
twitch. They were learning, at the expense of a 
fellow-countryman, the lesson of their race, which 
is to put away all emotion and entrap the alien at 
the proper time. 

So far good. King was importing himself more 
freely into the trial, being vengeful where Prout 
was grieved. They knew the penalties of trespass- 
ing ? With a fine show of irresolution, Stalky ad- 
mitted that he had gathered some information 

vaguely bearing on this head, but he thought 

The sentence was dragged out to the uttermost: 
Stalky did not wish to play his trump with such an 
opponent. Mr. King desired no buts, nor was he 
interested in Stalky’s evasions. They, on the other 
hand, might be interested in his poor views. Boys 
who crept — who sneaked — who lurked — out of 
bounds, even the generous bounds o p the Natural 
History Society, which they had falsely joined as 
a cloak for their misdeeds — their vices — their vil- 
lainies — their immoralities 

£ £ He’ll break cover in a minute,” said Stalky to 
himself. “ Then we’ll run into him before he gets 
away.” 


[ 31 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Such boys, scabrous boys, moral lepers — the cur- 
rent of his words was carrying King off his feet 
— evil-speakers, liars, slow-bellies — yea, incipient 
drunkards . . 

He was merely working up to a peroration, and 
the boys knew it; but McTurk cut through the 
frothing sentence, the others echoing: 

“ I appeal to the Head, sir.” 

“ I appeal to the Head, sir.” 

“ I appeal to the Head, sir.” 

It was their unquestioned right. Drunkenness 
meant expulsion after a public flogging. They had 
been accused of it. The case was the Head’s, and 
the Head’s alone. 

“ Thou hast appealed unto Caesar: unto Caesar 
shalt thou go.” They had heard that sentence 
once or twice before in their careers. “Hone the 
less,” said King, uneasily, “you would be better 
advised to abide by our decision, my young 
friends.” 

“ Are we allowed to associate with the rest of the 
school till we see the Head, sir ? ” said McTurk to his 
house-master, disregarding King. This at once 
lifted the situation to its loftiest plane. Moreover, 
it meant no work, for moral leprosy was strictly 
quarantined, and the Head never executed judg- 
ment till twenty -four cold hours later. 

“ Well — er — if you persist in your defiant atti- 
[ 32 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH. ” 


tude,” said King, with a loving look at the canes 
under Foxy’s arm. “ There is no alternative.” 

Ten minutes later the news was over the whole 
school. Stalky and Co. had fallen at last — fallen 
by drink. They had been drinking. They had re- 
turned blind-drunk from a hut. They were even 
now lying hopelessly intoxicated on the dormitory 
floor. A few bold spirits crept up to look, and re- 
ceived boots about the head from the criminals. 

“ We’ve got him — got him on the Caudine Toast- 
ing-fork ! ” said Stalky, after those hints were 
taken. “King’ll have to prove his charges up to 
the giddy hilt.” 

“Too much ticklee, him bust,” Beetle quoted 
from a book of his reading. “ Didn’t I say he’d go 
pop if we lat un bide ? ” 

“No prep., either, O ye incipient drunkards,” 
said McTurk, “and it’s trig night, too. Hullo! 
Here’s our dear friend Foxy. More tortures, Foxi- 
bus?” 

“ I’ve brought you something to eat, young gen- 
tlemen,” said the Sergeant from behind a crowded 
tray. Their wars had ever been waged without 
malice, and a suspicion floated in Foxy’s mind that 
boys who allowed themselves to be tracked so easily 
might, perhaps, hold something in reserve. Foxy 
had served through the Mutiny, when early and 
accurate information was worth much. 

[ 33 ] 


3 


STALKY & CO. 


“I — I noticed you ’adn’t ’ad anything to eat, 
an’ I spoke to Gumbly, an’ he said you wasn’t ex- 
actly cut off from supplies. So I brought up 
this. It’s your potted ’am tin, ain’t it, Mr. Cork- 
ran? ” 

“Why, Foxibus, you’re a brick,” said Stalky. 
“I didn’t think you had this much — what’s the 
word, Beetle?” 

“ Bowels,” Beetle replied, promptly. “ Thank 
you, Sergeant. That’s young Carter’s potted ham, 
though. ’ ’ 

“ There was a C on it. I thought it was Mr. 
Corkran’s. This is a very serious business, young 
gentlemen. That’s what it is. I didn’t know, 
perhaps, but there might be something on your 
side which you hadn’t said to Mr. King or Mr. 
Prout, maybe.” 

“ There is. Heaps, Foxibus.” This from Stalky 
through a full mouth. 

“ Then you see, if that was the case, it seemed to 
me I might represent it, quiet so to say, to the 
’Ead when he asks me about it. I’ve got to take 
’im the charges to-night, an’ — it looks bad on the 
face of it.” 

“ ’Trocious bad, Foxy. Twenty-seven cuts in the 
Gym before all the school, and public expulsion. 
‘ Wine is a mocker, strong drink is ragin’,’ ” quoth 
Beetle. 

[ 34 ] 


“IN AMBUSH.” 


“It’s nothin’ to make fun of, young gentlemen. 
I ’ave to go to the ’Ead with the charges. An’ — an’ 
you mayn’t be aware, per’aps, that I was followin’ 
you this afternoon; havin’ my suspicions.” 

“Did ye see the notice-boards?” croaked Mc- 
Turk, in the very brogue of Colonel Dabney. 

“Ye’ve eyes in your head. Don’t attempt to 
deny it. Ye did ! ” said Beetle. 

“ A sergeant! To run about poachin’ on your 
pension ! Damnable, O damnable ! ” said Stalky, 
without pity. 

“ Good Lord ! ” said the Sergeant, sitting heavily 
upon a bed. “Where — where the devil was yon? 
I might ha’ known it was a do — somewhere.” 

“Oh, you clever maniac!” Stalky resumed. 
“We mayn’t be aware you were followin’ us this 
afternoon, mayn’t we? ’Thought you were stalkin’ 
us, eh ? Why, we led you bung into it, of course. 
Colonel Dabney — don’t you think he’s a nice man, 
Foxy ? — Colonel Dabney’s our pet particular friend. 
We’ve been goin’ there for weeks and weeks. He 
invited us. You and your duty ! Curse your duty, 
sir ! Your duty was to keep off his covers.” 

“You’ll never be able to hold up your head 
again, Foxy. The fags ’ll hoot at you,” said 
Beetle. “ Think of your giddy prestige ! ” 

The Sergeant was thinking — hard. 

“Look ’ere, young gentlemen,” he said, ear- 
[ 35 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


nestly. “ You aren’t surely ever goin’ to tell, are 
you? Wasn’t Mr. Prout and Mr. King in — in it 
too?” 

“ Foxibusculus, they was. They was — singular 
horrid. Caught it worse than you. We heard 
every word of it. You got off easy, considerin’. 
If I’d been Dabney I swear I’d ha’ quodded you. 
I think I’ll suggest it to him to-morrow.” 

“An’ it’s all goin’ up to the ’Ead. Oh, Good 
Lord ! ” 

“Every giddy word of it, my Chingangook, ” 
said Beetle, dancing. “ Why shouldn’t it ? We’ve 
done nothing wrong. We ain’t poachers. We 
didn’t cut about blastin’ the characters of poor, in- 
nocent boys — saying they were drunk.” 

“That I didn’t,” said Foxy. “I — I only said 
that you be’aved uncommon odd when you come 
back with that badger. Mr. King may have taken 
the wrong hint from that. ’ ’ 

“ ’Course he did; an’ he’ll jolly well shove all the 
blame on you when he finds out he’s wrong. We 
know King, if you don’t. I’m ashamed of you. 
You ain’t fit to be a sergeant,” said McTurk. 

“Hot with three thorough-goin’ young devils 
like you, I ain’t. I’ve been had. I’ve been am- 
buscaded. Horse, foot, an’ guns, I’ve been had, 
an’ — an’ there’ll be no holdin’ the junior forms 
after this. M’ rover, the ’Ead will send me with a 
[ 36 ] 


“IN AMBUSH.” 


note to Colonel Dabney to ask if what you say 
about bein’ invited was true.” 

“ Then you’d better go in by the Lodge-gates 
this time, instead of chasin’ your dam’ boys — oh, 
that was the Epistle to King — so it was. We-el, 
Foxy?” Stalky put his chin on his hands and 
regarded the victim with deep delight. 

“ Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu ! I gloat! Hear me!” said 
McTurk. “Foxy brought us tea when we were 
moral lepers. Foxy has a heart. Foxy has been in 
the Army, too.” 

“ I wish I’d ha’ had you in my company, young 
gentlemen,” said the Sergeant from the depths of 
his heart; “I’d ha’ given you something.” 

“Silence at drum-head court-martial,” McTurk 
went on. “I’m advocate for the prisoner; and, 
besides, this is much too good to tell all the other 
brutes in the Coll. They’d never understand. 
They play cricket, and say: ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘O, 
sir,’ and ‘ No, sir.’ ” 

“Never mind that. Go ahead,” said Stalky. 

“Well, Foxy’s a good little chap when he does 
not esteem himself so as to be clever.” 

“ 4 Take not out your ’ounds on a werry windy 
day,’ ” Stalky struck in. “/don’t care if you let 
him off.” 

“ Nor me,” said Beetle. “ Heffy is my only joy 
— Heffy and King.” 


[ 37 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“I ’ad to do it,” said the Sergeant,. plaintively. 

“ Right, O ! Led away by bad companions in 
the execution of his duty or — or words to that 
effect. You’re dismissed with a reprimand, Foxy. 
We won’t tell about you. I swear we won’t,” 
McTurk concluded. “ Bad for the discipline of the 
school. Horrid bad. ’ ’ 

4 ‘Well,” said the Sergeant, gathering up the 
tea-things, “knowin’ what I know o’ the young 
dev — gentlemen of the College, I’m very glad to 
’ear it. But what am I to tell the ’Ead ? ” 

“ Anything you jolly well please, Foxy. We 
aren’t the criminals.” 

To say that the Head was annoyed when the Ser- 
geant appeared after dinner with the day’s crime- 
sheet would be putting it mildly. 

“ Corkran, McTurk, and Co., I see. Bounds as 
usual. Hullo ! What the deuce is this ? Suspicion 
of drinking. Whose charge ? ” 

“Mr. King’s, sir. I caught ’em out of bounds, 
sir : at least that was ’ow it looked. But there’s a lot 
be’ind, sir.” The Sergeant was evidently troubled. 

“Go on,” said the Head. “Let us have your 
version. ’ ’ 

He and the Sergeant had dealt with one another 
for some seven years ; and the Head knew that Mr. 
King’s statements depended very largely on Mr. 
King’s temper. 

[ 38 ] 


‘ f I N AMBUSH.” 


il I thought they were out of bounds along the 
cliffs. But it come out they wasn’t, sir. I saw 
them go into Colonel Dabney’s woods, and — Mr. 
King and Mr. Prout come along — and — the fact 
was, sir, we was mistook for poachers by Colonel 
Dabney’s people — Mr. King and Mr. Prout and 
me. There were some words, sir, on both sides. 
The young gentlemen slipped ’ome somehow, and 
they seemed ’ighly humorous, sir. Mr. King was 
mistook by Colonel Dabney himself — Colonel Dab- 
ney bein’ strict. Then they preferred to come 
straight to you, sir, on account of what — what Mr. 
King may ’ave said about their ’abits afterwards in 
Mr. Prout ’s study. I only said they was ’ighly 
humorous, laughin’ an’ gigglin’, an’ a bit above 
’emselves. They’ve since told me, sir, in a humor- 
ous way, that they was invited by Colonel Dabney 
to go into ’is woods.” 

“ I see. They didn’t tell their house-master that, 
of course.” 

“ They took up Mr. King on appeal just as soon 
as he spoke about their — ’abits. Put in the appeal 
at once, sir, an’ asked to be sent to the dormitory 
waitin’ for you. I’ve since gathered, sir, in their 
humorous way, sir, that some’ow or other they’ve 
’eard about every word Colonel Dabney said to 
Mr. King and Mr. Prout when he mistook ’em for 
poachers. I — I might ha’ known when they led 
[ 39 ] 


4 


STALKY & CO. 


me on so that they ’eld the inner line of communi- 
cations. It’s — it’s a plain do, sir, if yon ask me / 
an’ they’re gloatin’ over it in the dormitory.” 

The Head saw — saw even to the uttermost far- 
thing — and his mouth twitched a little under his 
mustache. 

“ Send them to me at once, Sergeant. This case 
needn’t wait over.” 

“ Good evening,” said he when the three ap- 
peared under escort. “ I want your undivided at- 
tention for a few minutes. You’ve known me for 
five years, and I’ve known you for — twenty-five. 
I think we understand one another perfectly. I am 
now going to pay you a tremendous compliment 
(the brown one, please, Sergeant. Thanks. You 
needn’t wait). I’m going to execute you without 
rhyme, Beetle, or reason. I know you went to 
Colonel Dabney’s covers because you were invited. 
I’m not even going to send the Sergeant with a 
note to ask if your statement is true ; because I am 
convinced that on this occasion you have adhered 
strictly to the truth. I know, too, that you were 
not drinking. (You can take off that virtuous ex- 
pression, McTurk, or I shall begin to fear you don’t 
understand me.) There is not a flaw in any of your 
characters. And that is why I am going to per- 
petrate a howling injustice. Your reputations 
have been injured, haven’t they? You have been 
[ 40 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH. ” 


disgraced before the house, haven’t you? You have 
a peculiarly keen regard for the honor of your 
house, haven’t you? Well, now I am going to lick 
you.” 

Six apiece was their portion upon that word. 

“And this I think” — the Head replaced the 
cane, and flung the written charge into the waste- 
paper basket — “covers the situation. When you 
find a variation from the normal — this will be use- 
ful to you in later life — always meet him in an ab- 
normal way. And that reminds me. There are a 
pile of paper-backs on that shelf. You can borrow 
them if you put them back. I don’t think they’ll 
take any harm from being read in the open. They 
smell of tobacco rather. You will go to prep, this 
evening as usual. Good-night,” said that amazing 
man. 

“ Good-night, and thank you, sir.” 

“I swear I’ll pray for the Head to-night,” said 
Beetle. “ Those last two cuts were just flicks on 
my collar. There’s a ‘ Monte Cristo ’ in that lower 
shelf. I saw it. Bags I, next time we go to 
Aves ! ” 

“Dearr man!” said McTurk. “No gating. 
No impots. No beastly questions. All settled. 
Hullo ! what’s King goin’ in to him for — King and 
Prout? ” 

Whatever the nature of that interview, it did 
4 [ 41 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


not improve either King’s or Prout’s ruffled plumes, 
for, when they came out of the Head’s house, six 
eyes noted that the one was red and blue with emo- 
tion as to his nose, and that the other was sweating 
profusely; That sight compensated them amply for 
the Imperial Jaw with which they were favored by 
the two. It seems — and who so astonished as they ? — 
that they had held back material facts ; that they 
were guilty both of suppressio veri and suggestio 
falsi (well-known gods against whom they often 
offended); further, that they were malignant in 
their dispositions, untrustworthy in their char- 
acters, pernicious and revolutionary in their influ- 
ences, abandoned to the devils of wilfulness, pride, 
and a most intolerable conceit. Ninthly, and lastly, 
they were to have a care and to be very careful. 

They were careful, as only boys can be when 
there is a hurt to be inflicted. They waited through 
one suffocating week till Prout and King were their 
royal selves again; waited till there was a house- 
match — their own house, too — in which Prout was 
taking part ; waited, further, till he had buckled on 
his pads in the pavilion and stood ready to go forth. 
King was scoring at the window, and the three sat 
on a bench without. 

Said Stalky to Beetle: “I say, Beetle, qms ous - 
todiet ipsos custodes f ” 

“ Don’t ask me,” said Beetle. “ I’ll have nothin’ 
[ 42 ] 


“ IN AMBUSH.” 


private with you. Ye can be as private as ye please 
the other end of the bench ; and I wish ye a very 
good afternoon.” 

McTurk yawned. 

“Well, ye should ha’ come up to the lodge like 
Christians instead o’ chasin’ your — a-hem — boys 
through the length an’ breadth of my covers. 
I think these house-matches are all rot. Let’s go 
over to Colonel Dabney’s an’ see if he’s collared 
any more poachers.” 

That afternoon there was joy in Aves. 


[«] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


The music-room on the top floor of Number Five 
was filled with the “Aladdin” company at re- 
hearsal. Dickson Quartus, commonly known as 
Dick Four, was Aladdin, stage-manager, ballet- 
master, half the orchestra, and largely librettist, 
for the “book ” had been rewritten and filled with 
local allusions. The pantomime was to be given 
next week, in the down-stairs study occupied by 
Aladdin, Abanazar, and the Emperor of China. 
The Slave of the Lamp, with the Princess Badroul- 
badour and the "Widow Twankay, owned Number 
Five study across the same landing, so that the com- 
pany could be easily assembled. The floor shook to 
the stamp-and-go of the ballet, while Aladdin, in 
pink cotton tights, a blue and tinsel jacket, and a 
plumed hat, banged alternately on the piano and 
his banjo. He was the moving spirit of the game, 
as befitted a senior who had passed his Army Pre- 
liminary and hoped to enter Sandhurst next spring. 

Aladdin came to his own at last, Abanazar lay 
poisoned on the floor, the Widow Twankay 
[ 44 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


danced her dance, and the company decided it 
would 44 come all right on the night.” 

“What about the last song, though?” said the 
Emperor, a tallish, fair-headed boy with a ghost of 
a mustache, at which he pulled manfully. “We 
need a rousing old tune.” 

“ 4 John Peel 5 ? 4 Drink, Puppy, Drink ’ ? ” sug- 
gested Abanazar, smpothing his baggy lilac pa- 
jamas. “ Pussy ” Abanazar never looked more than 
one-half awake, but he owned a soft, slow smile 
which well suited the part of the Wicked Uncle. 

“Stale,” said Aladdin. “Might as well have 
4 Grandfather’s Clock. ’ What’s that thing you 
were humming at prep, last night, Stalky? ” 

Stalky, The Slave of the Lamp, in black tights 
and doublet, a black silk half-mask on his forehead, 
whistled lazily where he lay on the top of the piano. 
It was a catchy music-hall tune. 

Dick Four cocked his head critically, and squinted 
down a large red nose. 

44 Once more, and I can pick it up,” he said> 
strumming. 4 4 Sing the words. ’ ’ 

“Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! Arrah, Patsy, mind the 
child ! 

Wrap him in an overcoat, he’s surely going wild ! 

Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby ! just you mind the child 
awhile 1 

He’ll kick and bite and cry all night ! Arrah, Patsy, mind 
the child 1 ” 


[ 45 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“Rippin’ ! Oh, rippin’!” said Dick Four. 
“ Only we shan’t have any piano on the night. 
We must work it with the banjoes — play an’ dance 
at the same time. You try, Tertius.” 

The Emperor pushed aside his pea-green sleeves 
of state, and followed Dick Four on a heavy nickel- 
plated banjo. 

“Yes, but I’m dead all this time. Bung in the 
middle of the stage, too,” said Abanazar. 

“Oh, that’s Beetle’s biznai,” said Dick Four. 
“Vamp it up, Beetle. Don’t keep us waiting all 
night. You’ve got to get Pussy out of the light 
somehow, and bring us all in dancin’ at the end.” 

“ All right. You two play it again,” said Beetle, 
who, in a gray skirt and a wig of chestnut sausage- 
curls, set slantwise above a pair of spectacles 
mended with an old boot-lace, represented the 
Widow Twankay. He waved one leg in time to 
the hammered refrain, and the banjoes grew louder. 

“Um! Ah! Er — ‘ Aladdin now has won his 
wife,’ ” he sang, and Dick Four repeated it. 

‘“Your Emperor is appeased.’” Tertius flung 
out his chest as he delivered his line. 

“How jump up, Pussy ! Say, ‘I think I’d bet- 
ter come to life ! ’ Then we all take hands and 
come forward: ‘We hope you’ve all been pleased. ’ 
Twiggez-vous ? ’ ’ 

“ JSfous tvnggons. Good enough. What’s the 
[ 46 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


chorus for the final ballet ? It’s four kicks and a 
turn,” said Dick Four. 

“Oh! Er! 

John Short will ring the curtain down. 

And ring the prompter’s bell ; 

We hope you know before you go 
That we all wish you well. ” 

“Bippin’ ! Bippin’ ! How for the Widow’s 
scene with the Princess. Hurry up, Turkey.” 

McTurk, in a violet silk skirt and a coquettish 
blue turban, slouched forward as one thoroughly 
ashamed of himself. The Slave of the Lamp 
climbed down from the piano, and dispassionately 
kicked him. “Play up, Turkey,” he said; “this 
is serious.” But there fell on the door the knock 
of authority. It happened to be King, in gown and 
mortar-board, enjoying a Saturday evening prowl 
before dinner. 

“Locked doors! Locked doors!” he snapped 
with a scowl. “What’s the meaning of this; and 
what, may I ask, is the intention of this — this epi- 
cene attire? ” 

“Pantomime, sir. The Head gave us leave,” 
said Abanazar, as the only member of the Sixth 
concerned. Dick Four stood firm in the confidence 
born of well-fitting tights, but Beetle strove to 
efface himself behind the piano. A gray princess- 
[ 47 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


skirt borrowed from a da} 7 -boy’s mother and a 
spotted cotton bodice unsystematically padded with 
imposition-paper make one ridiculous. And in other 
regards Beetle had a bad conscience. 

“As usual!” sneered King. “Futile foolery 
just when your careers, such as they may be, are 
hanging in the balance. I see ! Ah, I see ! The 
old gang of criminals — allied forces of disorder — 
Corkran ” — the Slave of the Lamp smiled politely — 
“ McTurk ” — the Irishman scowled — “ and, of 
course, the unspeakable Beetle, our friend Giga- 
dibs.” Abanazar, the Emperor, and Aladdin had 
more or less of characters, and King passed them 
over. “Come forth, my inky buffoon, from be- 
hind yonder instrument of music ! You supply, I 
presume, the doggerel for this entertainment. Es- 
teem yourself to be, as it were, a poet ? ’ ’ 

“ He’s found one of ’em,” thought Beetle, noting 
the flush on King’s cheek-bone. 

“ I have just had the pleasure of reading an effu- 
sion of yours to my address, I believe — an effusion 
intended to rhyme. So-so you despise me, Master 
Gigadibs, do you? I am quite aware — you need 
not explain — that it was ostensibly not intended for 
my edification. I read it with laughter — yes, with 
laughter. These paper pellets of inky boys— still a 
boy we are, Master Gigadibs — do not disturb my 
equanimity.” 


[ 48 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


“Wonder which it was,” thought Beetle. He 
had launched many lampoons on an appreciative 
public ever since he discovered that it was possible 
to convey reproof in rhyme. 

In sign of his unruffled calm, King proceeded 
to tear Beetle, whom he called Gigadibs, slowly 
asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his 
mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school 
is hard) he held him up to the derision of his asso- 
ciates — with the usual result. His wild flowers of 
speech — King had an unpleasant tongue — restored 
him to good humor at the last. He drew a lurid 
picture of Beetle’s latter end as a scurrilous pam- 
phleteer dying in an attic, scattered a few compli- 
ments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding 
Beetle that he must come up for judgment when 
called upon, went to Common-room, where he tri- 
umphed anew over his victims. 

“And the worst of it,” he explained in a loud 
voice over his soup, “is that I waste such gems of 
sarcasm on their thick heads. It’s miles above 
them, I’m certain.” 

“We-ell,” said the school chaplain slowly, “I 
don’t know what Corkran’s appreciation of your 
style may be, but young McTurk reads Ruskin for 
his amusement.” 

“ Honsense ! He does it to show off. I mistrust 


the dark Celt.” 


[ 49 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ He does nothing of the kind. I went into their 
study the other night, unofficially, and McTurk was 
gluing up the back of four odd numbers of c Fors 
Clavigera.’ ” 

“ I don’t know anything about their private 
lives,” said a mathematical master hotly, “ but I’ve 
learned by bitter experience that Humber Five 
study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless 
young devils. ” He blushed as the others laughed. 

But in the music-room there were wrath and bad 
language. Only Stalky, Slave of the Lamp, lay on 
the piano unmoved. 

“ That little swine Handers minor must have 
shown him your stuff. He’s always suckin’ up to 
King. Go and kill him,” he drawled. “ "Which one 
was it, Beetle? ” 

“Dunno,” said Beetle, struggling out of the 
skirt. “ There was one about his hunting for popu- 
larity with the small boys, and the other one was 
one about him in hell, tellin’ the Devil he was a 
Balliol man. I swear both of ’em rhymed all 
right. By gum ! P’raps Manders minor showed 
him both ! /’ZZ correct his caesuras for him.” 

He disappeared down two flights of stairs, flushed 
a small pink and white boy in a form-room next 
door to King’s study, which, again, was immedi- 
ately below his own, and chased him up the corri- 
dor into a form-room sacred to the revels of the 
[ 50 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


Lower Third. Thence he came back, greatly dis- 
ordered, to find McTurk, Stalky, and the others of 
the company, in his study enjoying an unlimited 
“brew” — coffee, cocoa, buns, new bread hot and 
steaming, sardine, sausage, ham-and-tongue paste, 
pilchards, three jams, and at least as many pounds 
of Devonshire cream. 

i 1 My Hat ! 5 5 said he, throwing himself upon 
the banquet. “ Who stumped up for this, Stalky ? ” 
It was within a month of term end, and blank 
starvation had reigned in the studies for weeks. 

“You,” said Stalky, serenely. 

“ Confound you ! You haven’t been popping my 
Sunday bags, then? ” 

“ Keep your hair on. It’s only your watch.” 

“ Watch ! I lost it — weeks ago. Out on the 
Burrows, when we tried to shoot the old ram — the 
day our pistol burst.” 

“It dropped out of your pocket (you’re so beastly 
careless, Beetle), and McTurk and I kept it for yon. 
I’ve been wearing it for a week, and you never 
noticed. Took it into Bideford after dinner to-day. 
Got thirteen and sevenpence. Here’s the ticket.” 

“Well, that’s pretty average cool,” said Aba- 
nazar behind a slab of cream and jam, as Beetle, re- 
assured upon the safety of his Sunday trousers, 
showed not even surprise, much less resentment. 
Indeed, it was McTurk who grew angry, saying: 

[ 51 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ You gave him the ticket. Stalky ? You pawned 
it? You unmitigated beast! Why, last month 
you and Beetle sold mine ! ’ Never got a sniff of 

any ticket.” 

“Ah, that was because you locked your trunk, 
and we wasted half the afternoon hammering it 
•open. We might have pawned it if you’d behaved 
like a Christian, Turkey.” 

“My Aunt!” said Abanazar, “you chaps are 
communists. Yote of thanks to Beetle, though.” 

“That’s beastly unfair,” said Stalky, “when I 
took all the trouble to pawn it. Beetle never knew 
he had a watch. Oh, I say, Kabbits-Eggs gave me 
a lift into Bideford this afternoon.” 

Kabbits-Eggs was the local carrier — an outcrop of 
the early Devonian formation. It was Stalky who 
had invented his unlovely name. “ He was pretty 
average drunk, or he wouldn’t haved one it. Kab- 
bits-Eggs is a little shy of me, somehow. But I 
swore it was pax between us, and gave him a bob. 
He stopped at two pubs on the way in, so he’ll be 
howling drunk to-night. Oh, don’t begin reading, 
Beetle; there’s a council of war on. What the 
deuce is the matter with your collar? ” 

“ ’Chivied Manders minor into the Lower Third 
box-room.’ ’Had all his beastly little friends on top 
of me,” said Beetle from behind a jar of pilchard* 
and a book. 


[ 52 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 

“You ass ! Any fool could have told you where 
Manders would bunk to,” said McTurk. 

“I didn’t think,” said Beetle, meekly, scooping 
out pilchards with a spoon. 

“Course you didn’t. You never do.” McTurk 
adjusted Beetle’s collar with a savage tug. “ Don’t 
drop oil all over my ‘ Fors,’ or I’ll scrag you ! ” 

“ Shut up, you — you Irish Biddy ! ’Tisn’t your 
beastly ‘ Fors.’ It’s one of mine.” 

The book was a fat, brown-backed volume of the 
later Sixties, which King had once thrown at 
Beetle’s head that Beetle might see whence the 
name Gigadibs came. Beetle had quietly annexed 
the book, and had seen — several things. The quar- 
ter-comprehended verses lived and ate with him, as 
the bedropped pages showed. Tie removed himself 
from all that world, drifting at large with wondrous 
Men and Women, till McTurk hammered the pil- 
chard spoon on his head and he snarled. 

“Beetle! You’re oppressed and insulted and 
bullied by King. Don’t you feel it ? ” 

“Let me alone ! I can write some more poetry 
about him if I am, I suppose.” 

“Mad ! Quite mad ! ” said Stalky to the visit- 
ors, as one exhibiting strange beasts. “ Beetle reads 
an ass called Brownin’, and McTurk reads an ass 

called Buskin ; and ” 

“Buskin isn’t an ass,” said McTurk. “He’s 
[ 53 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


almost as good as the Opium Eater. He says 
4 we’re children of noble races trained by surround- 
ing art. ’ That means me , and the way I decorated 
the study when you two badgers would have stuck 
up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a noble 
race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading, or I’ll 
shove a pilchard down your neck ! ” 

“It’s two to one,” said Stalky, warningly, and 
Beetle closed the book, in obedience to the law 
under which he and his companions had lived for 
six checkered years. 

The visitors looked on delighted. Number Five 
study had a reputation for more variegated insanity 
than the rest of the school put together ; and so far 
as its code allowed friendship with outsiders it was 
polite and open-hearted to its neighbors on the same 
landing. 

“ What rot do you want now ? ” said Beetle. 

“ King ! War ! ” said McTurk, jerking his head 
toward the wall, where hung a small wooden West- 
Airican war-drum, a gift to McTurk from a naval 
uncle. 

“Then we shall be turned out of the study 
again,” said Beetle, who loved his flesh-pots. 
“Mason turned us out for — just warbling on it.” 
Mason was the mathematical master who had testi- 
fied in Common-room. 

4 4 W arbling ? — O Lord ! ’ ’ said Abanazar . 4 4 We 

[ 54 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


couldn’t hear ourselves speak in our study when you 
played the infernal thing. What’s the good of get- 
ting turned out of your study, anyhow? ” 

“We lived in the form -rooms for a week, too,” 
said Beetle, tragically. “ And it was beastly cold.” 

“ Ye-es, but Mason’s rooms were filled with rats 
every day we were out. It took him a week to 
draw the inference,” said McTurk. “He loathes 
rats. ’Minute he let us go back the rats stopped. 
Mason’s a little shy of us now, but there was no 
evidence.” 

“ Jolly well there wasn’t,” said Stalky, “ when I 
got out on the roof and dropped the beastly things 
down his chimney. But, look here — question is, 
are our characters good enough just now to stand a 
study row? ” 

“ Never mind mine,” said Beetle. “ King swears 
I haven’t any.” 

“I’m not thinking of you,” Stalky returned 
scornfully. “You aren’t going up for the Army, 
you old bat. I don’t want to be expelled — and the 
Head’s getting rather shy of us, too.” 

“ Rot ! ” said McTurk. “ The Head never expels 
except for beastliness or stealing. But I forgot ; 
you and Stalky are thieves — regular burglars.” 

The visitors gasped, but Stalky interpreted the 
parable with large grins. 

“Well, you know, that little beast Manders 
[ 55 ] 


5 


STALKY & CO. 


minor saw Beetle and me hammerin’ McTurk’s 
trunk open in the dormitory when we took his 
watch last month. Of course Manders sneaked to 
Mason, and Mason solemnly took it up as a case of 
theft, to get even with us about the rats.” 

“That just put Mason into our giddy hands,” 
said McTurk, blandly. “We were nice to him, 
’cause he was a new master and wanted to win the 
confidence of the boys. ’Pity he draws inferences, 
though. Stalky went to his study and pretended to 
blub, and told Mason he’d lead a new life if Mason 
would let him off this time, but Mason wouldn’t. 
’Said it is his duty to report him to the Head.” 

“Vi. cive swine!” said Beetle. “It was all 
those Then I blubbed, too, and Stalky con- 

fessed . he’d been a thief in regular practice for 
six ye. ever since lie came to the school; and 
that I' ught him — a la Fagin. Mason turned 
white v h joy. lie thought he had us on toast. ” 
“ Go* : ms ! Gorgeous ! ” said Dick Four. 
“Wen heard of this.” « 

“ ’lou.. uo.. Mason kept it jolly quiet. He 
wrote down all our statements on impot-paper. 
There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t believe,” said 
Stalky. 

“ And handed it all up to the Head, with an ex- 
tempore prayer. It took about forty pages,” said 
Beetle. “ I helped him a lot.” 

[ 56 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


“ And then, you crazy idiots? ” said Abanazar. 

“ Oh, we were sent for; and Stalky asked to 
have the ‘ depositions ’ read out, and the Head 
knocked him spinning into a waste-paper basket. 
Then he gave us eight cuts apiece — welters — for — 
for — takin’ unheard-of liberties with a new master. 
I saw his shoulders shaking when we went out. D© 
you know,” said Beetle, pensively, ‘ ‘ that Mason 
can’t look at us now in second lesson without blush- 
ing? We three stare at him sometimes till he 
regularly trickles. He’s an awfully sensitive 
beast.” 

“ He read ‘ Eric, or Little by Little,’ ” said Me- 
Turk; “so we gave him ‘St. Winifred’s, or the 
World of School.’ They spent all their spare time 
stealing at St. Winifred’s, when they weren’t pray- 
ing or getting drunk at pubs. Well, that was only 
a week ago, and the Head’s a little bit shy of us. 
He called it constructive deviltry. Stalky invented 
it all.” 

“Hot the least good having a row with a master 
unless you can make an ass of him,” said Stalky, 
extended at ease on the hearth-rug. “If Mason 
didn’t know Humber Five — well, he’s learnt, that’s 
all. How, my dearly beloved ’earers ” — Stalky 
curled his legs under him and addressed the com- 
pany — “we’ve got that strong, perseverin’ man 
King on our hands. He went miles out of his way 
5 [ 57 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


to provoke a conflict.” (Here Stalky snapped down 
the black silk domino and assumed the air of a 
judge.) “He has oppressed Beetle, McTurk, and 
me, jprivatim et seriatim , one by one, as he could 
catch us. But now he has insulted Humber Five up 
in the music-room, and in the presence of these — 
these ossifers of the Kinety- third, wot look like 
hairdressers. Binjimin, we must make him cry 
‘ Capivi ! ’ ” 

Stalky’s reading did not include Browning or 
Euskin. 

“And, besides,” said McTurk, “he’s a Philis- 
tine, a basket-hanger. He wears a tartan tie. 
Euskin says that any man who wears a tartan tie 
will, without doubt, be damned everlastingly. ” 

“Bravo, McTurk,” said Tertius; “I thought he 
was only a beast.” 

“He’s that, too, of course, but he’s worse. He 
has a china basket with blue ribbons and a pink 
kitten on it, hung up in his window to grow musk 
in. You know when I got all that old oak carvin’ 
out of Bideford Church, when they were restoring 
it (Euskin says that any man who’ll restore a church 
is an unmitigated sweep), and stuck it up here with 
glue? Well, King came in and wanted to know 
whether we’d done it with a fret-saw ! Yah ! He 
is the King of basket-hangers ! ” 

Down went McTurk’ s inky thumb over an im 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


aginary arena full of bleeding Kings. “ Placetne, 
child of a generous race ! ” he cried to Beetle. 

“Well,” began Beetle, doubtfully, “he comes 
from Balliol, but I’m going to give the beast a 
chance. You see I can always make him hop with 
some more poetry. He can’t report me to the 
Head, because it makes him ridiculous. (Stalky’s 
quite right.) But he shall have his chance.” 

Beetle opened the book on the table, ran his fin- 
ger down a page, and began at random: 

“ Or who in Moscow toward the Czar 
With the demurest of footfalls, 

Over the Kremlin’s pavement white 
With serpentine and syenite, 

Steps with five other generals ” 

“ That’s no good. Try another,” said Stalky. 
“Hold on a shake; I know what’s coming.” 
McTurk was reading over Beetle’s shoulder. 

“ That simultaneously take snuff, 

For each to have pretext enough 
And kerchiefwise unfold his sash, 

Which— softness’ self — is yet the stuff 

(Gummy ! What a sentence ! ) 

To hold fast where a steel chain snaps 
And leave the grand white neck no gash. 


(Full stop.)” 


[ 59 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ ’Don’t understand a word of it,” said Stalky. 

“More fool you ! Construe,” said McTurk. 
“Those six bargees scragged the Czar, and left 
no evidence. Actum est with King. ” 

“He gave me that book, too,” said Beetle, lick- 
ing his lips : 

“ There’s a great text in Galatians, 

Once you trip on it entails 
Twenty-nine distinct damnations, 

One sure if another fails.” 

Then irrelevantly: 

“Setebos! Setebos! andSetebos! 

Thinketh he liveth in the cold of the moon.” 

“He’s just come in from dinner,” said Dick 
Four, looking through the window. “Manders 
minor is with him.” 

“ ’Safest place for Manders minor just now,” said 
Beetle. 

“Then you chaps had better clear out,” said 
Stalky politely to the visitors. “ ’Tisn’t fair to 
mix you up in a study row. Besides, we can’t 
afford to have evidence.” 

“Are you going to begin at once?” said Alad- 
din. 

“Immediately, if not sooner,” said Stalky, and 
turned out the gas. “Strong, perseverin’ man — 
King. Make him cry ‘ Capivi. ’ G’way, Binjimin.” 

[ 60 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 

The company retreated to their own neat and 
spacious study with expectant souls. 

“When Stalky blows out his nostrils like a 
horse,” said Aladdin to the Emperor of China, 
“ he’s on the war-path. ’Wonder what King will 
get.” 

44 Beans,” said the Emperor. 44 Humber Five 
generally pays in full.” 

44 Wonder if I ought to take any notice of it 
officially,” said Abanazar, who had just remem- 
bered he was a prefect. 

44 It’s none of your business, Pussy. Besides, if 
you did, we’d have them hostile to us; and we 
shouldn’t be able to do any work,” said Aladdin. 
44 They’ve begun already.” 

How that West- African war-drum had been made 
to signal across estuaries and deltas. Humber Five 
was forbidden to wake the engine within earshot 
of the school. But a deep, devastating drone filled 
the passages as McTurk and Beetle scientifically 
rubbed its top. Anon it changed to the blare of 
trumpets — of savage pursuing trumpets. Then, 
as McTurk slapped one side, smooth with the 
blood of ancient sacrifice, the roar broke into 
short coughing howls such as the wounded gorilla 
throws in his native forest. These were followed 
by the wrath of King — three steps at a time, up 
the staircase, with a dry whir of the gown. Alad- 
[ 61 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


din and company, listening, squeaked with excite- 
ment as the door crashed open. King stumbled 
into the darkness, and cursed those performers 
by the gods of Balliol and quiet repose. 

“ Turned out for a week,” said Aladdin, holding 
the study door on the crack. “ Key to be brought 
down to his study in five minutes. ‘ Brutes ! Bar- 
barians ! Savages ! Children ! ’ He’s rather agi- 
tated. ‘Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby,”’ he sang 
in a whisper as he clung to the door-knob, dancing 
a noiseless war-dance. 

King went down-stairs again, and Beetle and Me- 
Turk lit the gas to confer with Stalky. But Stalky 
had vanished. 

‘ ‘Looks like no end of a mess,” said Beetle, col- 
lecting his books and mathematical instrument case. 
“ A week in the form-rooms isn’t any advantage to 
us.” 

“ Yes, but don’t you see that Stalky isn’t here, 
you owl!” said McTurk. “Take down the key, 
and look sorrowful. King’ll only jaw you for half 
an hour. I’m going to read in the lower form- 
room.” 

“ But it’s always me,” mourned Beetle. 

“Wait till we see,” said McTurk, hopefully. “ I 
don’t know any more than you do what Stalky 
means, but it’s something. Go down and draw 
King’s fire. You’re used to it.” 

[ 62 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


No sooner had the key turned in the door than 
the lid of the coal-box, which was also the window- 
seat, lifted cautiously. It had been a tight fit, even 
for the lithe Stalky, his head between his knees, 
and his stomach under his right ear. From a 
drawer in the table he took a well-worn catapult, a 
handful of buckshot, and a duplicate key of the 
study ; noiselessly he raised the window and kneeled 
by it, his face turned to the road, the wind-sloped 
trees, the dark levels of the Burrows, and the white 
line of breakers falling nine-deep along the Pebble- 
ridge. Far down the steep-banked Devonshire lane 
he heard the husky hoot of the carrier’s horn. 
There was a ghost of melody in it, as it might have 
been the wind in a gin-bottle essaying to sing, “ It’s 
a way we have in the Army.” 

Stalky smiled a tight-lipped smile, and at extreme 
range opened fire : the old horse half wheeled in the 
shafts. 

“Where he gwaine tu?” hiccoughed Kabbits- 
Eggs. Another buckshot tore through the rotten 
canvas tilt with a vicious zipp. 

“ Habet ! ” murmured Stalky, as Rabbits-Eggs 
swore into the patient night, protesting that he saw 
the “ dommed colleger ” who was assaulting him. 

“ And so,” King was saying in a high head voice 
to Beetle, whom he had kept to play with before 
[ 63 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Manders minor, well knowing that it hurts a Fifth- 
form boy to be held up to a fag’s derision, “ and 
so, Master Beetle, in spite of all our verses, which 
we are so proud of, when we presume to come into 
direct conflict with even so humble a representative 
of authority as myself, for instance, we are turned 
out of our studies, are we not? ” 

C{ Yes, sir,” said Beetle, with a sheepish grin on 
his lips and murder in his heart. Hope had nearly 
left him, but he clung to a well-established faith 
that never was Stalky so dangerous as when he was 
invisible. 

“You are not required to criticise, thank you. 
Turned out of our studies, we are, just as if we were 
no better than little Manders minor. Only inky 
schoolboys we are, and must be treated as such.” 

Beetle pricked up his ears, for Babbits-Eggs was 
swearing savagely on the road, and some of the 
language entered at the upper sash. King believed 
in ventilation. He strode to the window, gowned 
and majestic, very visible in the gaslight. 

“I zee ’un ! I zee ’un ! ” roared Babbits-Eggs, 
now that he had found a visible foe- — another 
shot from the darkness above. “ Yiss, yeou, yeou 
long-nosed, fower-eyed, gingy-whiskered beggar ! 
Yeu’m tu old for such goin’s on. Aie ! Poultice 
yeour nose, I tall ’ee ! Poultice yeour long nose ! ” 
Beetle’s heart leaped up within him. Somewhere, 
[ 64 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


somehow, he knew, Stalky moved behind these 
manifestations. There were hope and the prospect 
of revenge. He would embody the suggestion 
about the nose in deathless verse. King threw up 
the window, and sternly rebuked Rabbits-Eggs. 
But the carrier was beyond fear or fawning. He 
had descended from the cart, and was stooping by 
the roadside. 

It all fell swiftly as a dream. Manders minor 
raised his hand to his head with a cry, as a jagged 
flint cannoned on to some rich tree-calf bindings in 
the bookshelf. Another quoited along the writing- 
table. Beetle made zealous feint to stop it, and in 
that endeavor overturned a student’s lamp, which 
dripped, via King’s papers and some choice books, 
greasily on to a Persian rug. There was much 
broken glass on the window-seat; the china bas- 
ket — McTurk’s aversion — cracked to flinders, had 
dropped her musk plant and its earth over the red 
rep cushions; Manders minor was bleeding pro- 
fusely from a cut on the cheek-bone; and King, 
using strange words, every one of which Beetle 
treasured, ran forth to find the school-sergeant, 
that Rabbits-Eggs might be instantly cast into 
jail. 

“ Poor chap ! ” said Beetle, with a false, feigned 
sympathy. “ Let it bleed a little. That’ll prevent 
apoplexy,” and he held the blind head skilfully 
[ 05 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


over the table, and the papers on the table, as he 
guided the howling Manders to the door. 

Then did Beetle, alone with the wreckage, return 
good for evil. How, in that office, a complete set 
of “ Gibbon ” was scarred all along the back as by 
a flint; how so much black and copying ink came 
to be mingled with Manders’s gore on the table- 
cloth; why the big gum-bottle, unstoppered, had 
rolled semicircularly across the floor ; and in what 
manner the white china door-knob grew to be 
painted with yet more of Manders’s young blood, 
were matters which Beetle did not explain when the 
rabid King returned to find him standing politely 
over the reeking hearth-rug. 

“ You never told me to go, sir,” he said, with 
the air of Casabianca, and King consigned him to 
the outer darkness. 

But it was to a boot-cupboard under the staircase 
on the ground floor that he hastened, to loose the 
mirth that was destroying him. He had not drawn 
breath for a first whoop of triumph when two 
hands choked him dumb. 

“ Go to the dormitory and get me my things. 
Bring ’em to Humber Five lavatory. I’m still in 
tights,” hissed Stalky, sitting on his head. “ Don’t 
run. Walk.” 

But Beetle staggered into the form-room next 
door, and delegated his duty to the yet unenlight- 
[ 66 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


ened McTurk, with an hysterical precis of the cam- 
paign thus far. So it was McTurk, of the wooden 
visage, who brought the clothes from the dormi- 
tory while Beetle panted on a form. Then the 
three buried themselves in Humber Five lavatory, 
turned on all the taps, filled the place with steam, 
and dropped weeping into the baths, where they 
pieced out the war. 

“ Moi ! Je ! Ich! Ego! ” gasped Stalky. “I 
waited till I couldn’t hear myself think, while you 
played the drum ! Hid in the coal-locker — and 
tweaked Kabbits-Eggs — and Babbits-Eggs rocked 
King. Wasn’t it beautiful? Did you hear the 
glass? ” 

“Why, he — he — he,” shrieked McTurk, one 
trembling finger pointed at Beetle. 

“Why, I — I — I was through it all,” Beetle 
howled; “in his study, being jawed.” 

“ Oh, my soul ! ” said Stalky with a yell, disap- 
pearing under water. 

“ The — the glass was nothing. Manders minor’s 
head’s cut open. La — la — lamp upset all over the 
rug. Blood on the books and papers. The gum ! 
The gum ! The gum ! The ink ! The ink ! The 
ink! Oh, Lord ! ” 

Then Stalky leaped out, all pink as he was, and 
shook Beetle into some sort of coherence; but his 
tale prostrated them afresh. 

[ 67 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ I bunked for the boot-cupboard the second I 
heard King go down-stairs. Beetle tumbled in on 
top of me. The spare key’s hid behind the loose 
board. There isn’t a shadow of evidence/’ said 
Stalky. They were all chanting together. 

“And he turned us out himself — himself — liim- 
self /” This from McTurk. “He can’t begin to 
suspect us. Oh, Stalky, it’s the loveliest thing 
we’ve ever done.” 

“ Gum ! Gum ! Dollops of gum ! ” shouted 
Beetle, his spectacles gleaming through a sea of 
lather. “ Ink and blood all mixed. I held the 
little beast’s head all over the Latin proses for Mon- 
day. Golly, how the oil stunk ! And Kabbits- 
Eggs told King to poultice his nose ! Did you hit 
Kabbits-Eggs, Stalky?” 

“Did I jolly well not? Tweaked him all over. 
Did you hear him curse ? Oh, I shall be sick in a 
minute if I don’t stop.” 

But dressing was a slow process, because McTurk 
was obliged to dance when he heard that the musk 
basket was broken, and, moreover, Beetle retailed 
all King’s language with emendations and purple 
insets. 

“ Shockin’ ! ” said Stalky, collapsing in a helpless 
welter of half -hitched trousers. “ So dam' bad, too, 
for innocent boys like us ! Wonder what they’d 
say at 4 St. Winifred’s, or the World of School.’ 

res] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


By gum ! That reminds me we owe the Lower 
Third one for assaultin’ Beetle when he chivied 
Manders minor. Come on ! It’s an alibi, Samivel; 
and, besides, if we let ’em off they’ll be worse next 
time.” 

The Lower Third had set a guard upon their 
form-room for the space of a full hour, which to a 
boy is a lifetime. Now they were busy with their 
Saturday evening businesses — cooking sparrows 
over the gas with rusty nibs; brewing unholy 
drinks in gallipots; skinning moles with pocket- 
knives ; attending to paper trays full of silkworms, 
or discussing the iniquities of their elders with a 
freedom, fluency, and point that would have amazed 
their parents. The blow fell without warning. 
Stalky upset a form crowded with small boys 
among their own cooking utensils, McTurk raided 
the untidy lockers as a terrier digs at a rabbit-hole, 
while Beetle poured ink upon such heads as he 
could not appeal to with a Smith’s Classical Dic- 
tionary. Three brisk minutes accounted for many 
silkworms, pet larvae, French exercises, school caps, 
half -prepared bones and skulls, and a dozen pots 
of home-made sloe jam. It was a great wreck- 
age, and the form-room looked as though three 
conflicting tempests had smitten it. 

“Phew!” said Stalky, drawing breath outside 
the door (amid groans of “ Oh, you beastly ca-ads ! 

[ 69 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


You think yourselves awful funny,’ 1 and so forth). 
“ That's all right. Never let the sun go down upon 
your wrath. Rummy little devils, fags. Got no 
notion o’ combinin’.” 

“ Six of ’em sat on my head when I went in af- 
ter Manders minor,” said Beetle. “I warned ’em 
what they’d get, though.” 

“Everybody paid in full — beautiful feelin’,” said 
McTurk, absently, as they strolled along the corri- 
dor. “Don’t think we’d better say much about 
King, though, do you, Stalky? ” 

“Not much. Our line is injured innocence, of 
course — same as when the Sergeant reported us on 
suspicion of smoking in the bunkers. If I hadn’t 
thought of buyin’ the pepper and spillin’ it all over 
our clothes, he’d have smelt us. King was gha-astly 
facetious about that. ’Called us bird-stuff ers in form 
for a week.” 

“Ah, King hates the Natural History Society 
because little Hartopp is president. Mustn’t do 
anything in the Coll, without glorifyin’ King,” 
said McTurk. “But he must be a putrid ass, } r ou 
know, to suppose at our time o’ life we’d go out 
and stuff birds like fags.” 

“Poor old King!” said Beetle. “He’s awf’ly 
unpopular in Common-room, and they’ll chaff his 
head off about Rabbits-Eggs. Golly ! How 
lovely ! Hovf beautiful ! How holy ! But you 
[ 70 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


should have seen his face when the first rock came 
in ! And the earth from the basket ! ” 

So they were all stricken helpless for five minutes. 

They repaired at last to Abanazar’s study, and 
were received reverently. 

“ What’s the matter? 5 ’ said Stalky, quick to 
realize new atmospheres. 

“ You know jolly well,” said Abanazar. “ You’ll 
be expelled if you get caught. King is a gibbering 
maniac.” 

“Who? Which? What? Expelled for how? 
We only played the war-drum. We’ve got turned 
out for that already.” 

“Do you chaps mean to say you didn’t make 
Rabbits-Eggs drunk and bribe him to rock King’s 
rooms ? ’ ’ 

“Bribe him? Ko, that I’ll swear we didn’t,” 
said Stalky, with a relieved heart, for he loved not 
to tell lies. “ What a low mind you’ve got, Pussy ! 
We’ve been down having a bath. Did Rabbits- 
Eggs rock King? Strong, perseverin’ man King? 
Shockin’ ! ” 

“Awf’ly. King’s frothing at the mouth. 
There’s bell for prayers. Come on.” 

“Wait a sec,” said Stalky, continuing the con- 
versation in a loud and cheerful voice, as they de- 
scended the stairs. “What did Rabbits-Eggs rock 
King for?” 


6 


[ 71 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“I know,” said Beetle, as they passed King’s 
open door. “ I was in kis study.” 

“ Husk, you ass ! ” kissed tke Emperor of 
Ckina. “ Ok, ke’s gone down to prayers,” said 
Beetle, watcking tke skadow of tke kouse-master 
on tke wall. “ Rabbits-Eggs was only a bit drunk, 
swearin’ at kis korse, and King jawed kim tkrougk 
tke window, and tken, of course, ke rocked 
King.” 

“ Do you mean to say,” said Stalky, “ tkat King 
began it?” 

King was behind tkem, and every well-weighed 
word went up tke staircase like an arrow. “ I can 
only swear,” said Beetle, “that King cursed like a 
bargee. Simply disgustin’. I’m goin’ to write to 
my father about it.” 

“Better report it to Mason,” suggested Stalky. 
“ He knows our tender consciences. Hold on a 
shake. I’ve got to tie my bootlace.” 

Tke other study hurried forward. They did not 
wish to be dragged into stage asides of this nature. 
So it was left to McTurk to sum up the situation 
beneath tke guns of tke enemy. 

“You see,” said tke Irishman, hanging on tke 
banister, “ ke begins by bullying little chaps; tken 
he bullies tke big chaps; tken he bullies someone 
who isn’t connected with tke College, and tken ke 
•atches it. Serves kim jolly well right. . . . 

[ 72 ] 


E LAMP. 


SLi 

I beg your paruon, sir. 1 aian’t see you were com- 
ing down the staircase.” 

The black gown tore past like a thunder-storm, 
and in its wake, three abreast, arms linked, the 
Aladdin company rolled up the big corridor to 
prayers, singing with most innocent intention : 

“ Arrali, Patsy, mind the baby! Arrah, Patsy, mind the 
child ! 

Wrap him up in an overcoat, he’s surely goin’ wild! 

Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby; just ye mind the child 
awhile ! 

He’ll kick an’ bite an’ cry all night! Arrah, Patsy, mind 
the child ! ” 




[ 73 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


It was a maiden aunt of Stalky who sent him 
both books, with the inscription, “ To dearest 
Artie, on his sixteenth birthday;” it was McTurk 
who ordered their hypothecation ; and it was 
Beetle, returned from Bideford, who flung them on 
the window-sill of Number Five study with news 
that Bastable would advance but ninepence on the 
two; “ Eric; or, Little by Little,” being almost as 
great a drug as “St. Winifred’s.” “An’ I don’t 
think much of your aunt. We’re nearly out of 
cartridges, too — Artie, dear.” 

Whereupon Stalky rose up to grapple with him, 
but McTurk sat on Stalky’s head, calling him a 
“pure-minded boy” till peace was declared. As 
they were grievously in arrears with a Latin prose, 
as it was a blazing July afternoon, and as they 
ought to have been at a house cricket-match, they 
began to renew their acquaintance, intimate and 
unholy, with the volumes. 

“Here we are!” said McTurk. “ c Corporal 
punishment produced on Eric the worst effects. He 
[ 74 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


burned not with remorse or regret ’ — make a note o’* 
that, Beetle — ( but with shame and violent indigna- 
tion. He glared ’ — oh, naughty Eric ! Let’s get 
to where he goes in for drink.” 

“ Hold on half a shake. Here’s another sample. 
‘ The Sixth, ’ he says, 4 is the palladium of all public 
schools.’ But this lot” — Stalky rapped the gilded 
book — “ can’t prevent fellows drinkin’ and stealin’, 
an’ lettin’ fags out of window at night, an’ — an’ 
doin’ what they please. Golly, what we’ve missed 
— not goin’ to St. "Winifred’s ! . . 

“I’m sorry to see any boys of my house taking 
so little interest in their matches.” 

Mr. Prout could move very silently if he pleased, 
though that is no merit in a boy’s eyes. He had 
flung open the study-door without knocking — an- 
other sin — and looked at them suspiciously. “ Yery 
sorry, indeed, I am to see you frowsting in your 
studies.” 

“We’ve been out ever since dinner, sir,” said 
McTurk wearily. One house-match is just like an- 
other, and their “ploy” of that week happened to 
be rabbit-shooting with saloon-pistols. 

“I can’t see a ball when it’s coming, sir,” said 
Beetle. “I’ve had my gig-lamps smashed at the 
Nets till I got excused. I wasn’t any good 
even as a fag, then, sir.” 

“ Tuck is probably your form. Tuck and brew- 

[ 75 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


ing. Why can’t you three take any interest in the 
honor of your house? ” 

They had heard that phrase till they were 
wearied. The “ honor of the house” was Prout’s 
weak point, and they knew well how to flick him 
on the raw. 

‘ c If you order us to go down, sir, of course we’ll 
go,” said Stalky, with maddening politeness. But 
Prout knew better than that. He had tried the ex- 
periment once at a big match, when the three, self- 
isolated, stood to attention for half an hour in full 
view of all the visitors, to whom fags, subsidized 
for that end, pointed them out as victims of Prout’s 
tyranny. And Prout was a sensitive man. 

In the infinitely petty confederacies of the Com- 
mon-room, King and Macrea, fellow house-masters, 
had borne it in upon him that by games, and games 
alone, was salvation wrought. Boys neglected were 
boys lost. They must be disciplined. Left to him- 
self, Prout would have made a sympathetic house- 
master; but he was never so left, and with the 
devilish insight of youth, the boys knew to whom 
they were indebted for his zeal. 

“ Must we go down, sir ? ” said McTurk. 

“ I don’t want to order you to do what a right- 
thinking boy should do gladly. I’m sorry.” And 
he lurched out with some hazy impression that he 
had sown good seed on poor ground. 

[ 76 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


“ Now what does he suppose is the use of that? ” 
said Beetle. 

“ Oh, he’s cracked. King jaws him in Common- 
room about not keepin’ us up to the mark, an’ 
Macrea burbles about ‘ dithcipline, ’ an’ old Heffy 
sits between ’em sweatin’ big drops. I heard Oke 
(the Common-room butler) talking to Richards 
(Prout’s house-servant) about it down in the base- 
ment the other day when I went down to bag some 
bread,” said Stalky. 

“ What did Oke say ? ” demanded MoTurk, 
throwing “ Eric ” into a corner. 

“ Oh, he said, ‘ They make more nise nor a nest 
full o’ jackdaws, an’ half of it like we’d no ears to 
our heads that waited on ’em. They talks over old 
Prout — what he’ve done an’ left undone about his 
boys. An’ how their boys be fine boys, an’ his’n 
be dom bad.’ Well, Oke talked like that, you 
know, and Richards got awf’ly wrathy. He has a 
down on King for something or other. Wonder 
why ? ” 

“Why, King talks about Prout in form-room — 
makes allusions, an’ all that — only half the chaps 
are such asses they can’t see what he’s drivin’ at. 
And d’you remember what he said about the c Cas- 
ual House ’ last Tuesday ? He meant us. They say 
he says perfectly beastlv things to his own house, 
making fun of Prout’s,” said Beetle. 

[W] 


STALKY & CO. 


“"Well, we didn’t come here to mix up in their 
rows,” McTurk said wrathfully. “Who’ll bathe 
after call-over? King’s takin’ it in the cricket- 
field. Come on.” Turkey seized his straw and led 
the way. 

They reached the sun-blistered pavilion over 
against the gray Pebbleridge just before roll-call, 
and, asking no questions, gathered from King’s 
voice and manner that his house was on the road to 
victory. 

“ Ah, ha ! ” said he, turning to show the light of 
his countenance. “ Here we have the ornaments of 
the Casual House at last. You consider cricket be- 
neath you, I believe” — the crowd, flannelled, snig- 
gered — “ and from what I have seen this afternoon, 
I fancy many others of your house hold the same 
view. And may I ask what you purpose to do with 
your noble selves till tea-time ? ” 

“ Going down to bathe, sir,” said Stalky. 

‘ ‘ And whence this sudden zeal for cleanliness ? 
There is nothing about you that particularly sug- 
gests it. Indeed, so far as I remember — I may be 
at fault — but a short time ago ” 

“ Five years, sir,” said Beetle hotly. 

King scowled. “ One of you was that thing 
called a water-funk. Yes, a water-funk. So now 
you wish to wash ? It is well. Cleanliness never 
injured a boy or — a house. We will proceed to 
[ 78 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


business, 5 ’ and he addressed himself to the call-over 
board. 

“ What the deuce did you say anything to him 
for, Beetle ? ’ 5 said McTurk angrily, as they strolled 
towards the big, open sea-baths. 

“ 5 T wasn’t fair — remindin’ one of bein’ a water- 
funk. My first term, too. Heaps of chaps are — 
when they can’t swim.” 

“Yes, you ass; but he saw he’d fetched you. 
You ought never to answer King.” 

“ But it wasn’t fair, Stalky.” 

“My Hat! You’ve been here six years, and 
you expect fairness. Well, you are a dithering 
idiot.” 

A knot of King’s boys, also bound for the baths, 
hailed them, beseeching them to wash — for the 
honor of their house. 

“ That’s what comes of King’s jawin’ and mess- 
in’. Those young animals wouldn’t have thought 
of it unless he’d put it into their heads. How 
they’ll be funny about it for weeks,” said Stalky. 
“ Don’t take any notice.” 

The boys came nearer, shouting an opprobrious 
word. At last they moved to windward, ostenta- 
tiously holding their noses. 

“ That’s pretty,” said Beetle. “ They’ll be say- 
in’ our house stinks next.” 

When they returned from the baths, damp- 

f79] 


STALKY & CO. 


headed, languid, at peace with the world, Beetle’s 
forecast came only too true. They were met in the 
corridor by a fag — a common, Lower-Second fag — 
who at arm’s length handed them a carefully 
wrapped piece of soap “with the compliments of 
King’s house.” 

“Hold on,” said Stalky, checking immediate at- 
tack. “ Who put you up to this, Nixon ? Rattray 
and White? (Those were two leaders in King’s 
house.) Thank you. There’s no answer.” 

“ Oh, it’s too sickening to have this kind o’ rot 
shoved on to a chap. What’s the sense of it? 
What’s the fun of it ? ” said McTurk. 

“ It will go on to the end of the term, though,” 
Beetle wagged his head sorrowfully. He had worn 
many jests threadbare on his own account. 

In a few days it became an established legend of 
the school that Prout’s house did not wash and were 
therefore noisome. Mr. King was pleased to smile 
succulently in form when one of his boys drew 
aside from Beetle with certain gestures. 

‘ ‘ There seems to be some disability attaching to 
you, my Beetle, or else why should Burton major 
withdraw, so to speak, the hem of his garments ? I 
confess I am still in the dark. Will some one be 
good enough to enlighten me?” 

Naturally, he was enlightened by half the form. 

“ Extraordinary ! Most extraordinary ! How- 

[ 80 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


ever, each house has its traditions, with which I 
would not for the world interfere. We have a pre- 
judice in favor of washing. Go on, Beetle — from 
4 jugurtha tamen ’ — and, if you can, avoid the more 
flagrant forms of guessing.” 

Prout’s house was furious because Macrea’s and 
Hartopp’s houses joined King’s to insult them. 
They called a house-meeting after dinner — an ex- 
cited and angry meeting of all save the prefects, 
whose dignity, though they sympathized, did not 
allow them to attend. They read ungrammatical 
resolutions, and made speeches beginning, “ Gentle- 
men, we have met on this occasion,” and ending 
with, “It’s a beastly shame,” precisely as houses 
have done since time and schools began. 

Number Five study attended, with its usual air of 
bland patronage. A t last McTurk, of the lan thorn 
jaws, delivered himself : 

“You jabber and jaw and burble, and that’s 
about all you can do. What’s the good of it? 
King’s house’ll only gloat because they’ve drawn 
you, and King will gloat, too. Besides, that reso- 
lution of Orrin’s is chock-full of bad grammar, and 
King’ll gloat over that 99 

“ I thought you an’ Beetle would put it right, 
an’— an’ we’d post it in the corridor,” said the 
composer meekly. 

“ Par si je le connai. I’m not goin’ to meddle 

[ 81 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


■with the biznai,” said Beetle. “It’s a gloat for 
King’s house. Turkey’s quite right.” 

“WeH, won’t Stalky, then?” 

But Stalky puffed out his cheeks and squinted 
down his nose in the style of Panurge, and all he 
said was, “ Oh, you abject burblers ! ” 

“You’re three beastly scabs ! ” was the instant 
retort of the democracy, and they went out amid 
execrations. 

“ This is piffling,” said McTurk. “ Let’s get our 
sallies, and go and shoot bunnies.” 

Three saloon-pistols, with a supply of bulleted 
breech-caps, were stored in Stalky’s trunk, and this 
trunk was in their dormitory, and their dormitory 
was a three-bed attic one, opening out of a ten -bed 
establishment, which, in turn, communicated with 
the great range of dormitories that ran practically 
from one end of the College to the other. Macrea’s 
house lay next to Prout’s, King’s next to Macrea’s, 
and Hartopp’s beyond that again. Carefully locked 
doors divided house from house, but each house, in 
its internal arrangements — the College had origi- 
nally been a terrace of twelve large houses — was a 
replica of the next; one straight roof covering all. 

They found Stalky’s bed drawn out from the wall 
to the left of the dormer window, and the latter 
end of Bichards protruding from a two-foot-square 
cupboard in the wall. 


[ 82 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


6 ‘What’s all this? Uve never noticed it before. 
What are you tryin’ to do, Fatty? ” 

“ Fillin’ basins, Muster Corkran.” Richards’s 
voice was hollow and muffled. “ They’ve been 
savin’ me trouble. Yiss.” 

“ ’Looks like it,” said McTurk. “Hi! You’ll 
stick if you don’t take care.” 

Richards backed puffing. 

“ I can’t rache un. Yiss, ’tess a turncock, Mus- 
ter McTurk. They’ve took an’ runned all the 
watter-pipes a storey higher in the houses — runned 
’em all along under the ’an g of the heaves, like. 
Runned ’em in last holidays. I can’t rache the 
turncock.” 

“Let me try,” said Stalky, diving into the 
aperture. 

“ Slip ’ee to the left, then, Muster Corkran. Slip 
’ee to the left, an’ feel in the dark.” 

To the left Stalky wriggled, and saw a long line 
of lead pipe disappearing up a triangular tunnel, 
whose roof was the rafters and boarding of the col- 
lege roof, whose floor was sharp-edged joists, and 
whose side was the rough studding of the lath and 
plaster wall under the dormer. 

“ Rummy show. How far does it go ? ” 

“ Right along, Muster Corkran — right along from 
end to end. Her runs under the ’ang of the heaves. 
Have ’ee rached the stopcock yet? Mr. King got 
[ 83 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


un put in to save us carryin’ watter from down- 
stairs to fill the basins. Ho place for a lusty man 
like old Richards. I’m tu thickabout to go fer- 
ritin’. Thank ’ee, Muster Corkran.” 

The water squirted through the tap just inside 
the cupboard, and, having filled the basins, the 
grateful Richards waddled away. 

The boys sat round-eyed on their beds consider- 
ing the possibilities of this trove. Two floors below 
them they could hear the hum of the angry house; 
for nothing is so still as a dormitory in mid-after- 
noon of a midsummer term. 

“It has been papered over till now.” McTurk 
examined the little door. “ If we’d only known 
before ! ” 

“I vote we go down and explore. Ho one will 
come up this time o’ day. We needn’t keep cave.” 

They crawled in, Stalky leading, drew the door 
behind them, and on all fours embarked on a dark 
and dirty road full of plaster, odd shavings, and all 
the raffle that builders leave in the waste room of a 
house. The passage was perhaps three feet wide, 
and, except for the struggling light round the edges 
of the cupboards (there was one to each dormer), 
almost pitchy dark. 

“Here’s Macrea’s house,” said Stalky, his eye at 
the crack of the third cupboard. ‘ 4 1 can see 
Barnes’s name on his trunk. Don’t make such a 
[ 84 ] 


A N UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


row, Beetle ! We can get right to the end of the 
Coll. Come on ! . . . We’re in King’s house 
now — I can see a bit of Rattray’s trunk. How 
these beastly boards hurt one’s knees ! ” They 
heard his nails scraping on plaster. 

‘ ‘ That’s the ceiling below. Look out! If we 
smashed that the plaster ’ud fall down in the lower 
dormitory,” said Beetle. 

“ Let’s,” whispered McTurk. 

“ An’ be collared first thing? Not much. Why, 
I can shove my hand ever so far up between these 
boards. ’ ’ 

Stalky thrust an arm to the elbow between the 
joists. 

“ No good stayin’ here. I vote we go back and 
talk it over. It’s a crummy place. ’Must say I’m 
grateful to King for his water- works.” 

They crawled out, brushed one another clean, 
slid the saloon-pistols down a trouser-leg, and hur- 
ried forth to a deep and solitary Devonshire lane in 
whose flanks a boy might sometimes slay a young 
rabbit. They threw themselves down under the 
rank elder bushes, and began to think aloud. 

“ You know,” said Stalky at last, sighting at a 
distant sparrow, “ we could hide our sallies in there 
like anything.” 

“Huh ! ” Beetle snorted, choked, and gurgled. 
He had been silent since they left the dormitory. 

[ 85 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Did you ever read a book called ‘ The History of 
a House ’ or something ? I got it out of the library 
the other day. A French woman wrote it — Yiolet 
somebody. But it’s translated, you know; and it’s 
very interestin’. Tells you how a house is built.” 

“ Well, if you’re in a sweat to find out that , you 
can go down to the new cottages they’re building 
for the coastguard.” 

“My Hat! I will.” He felt in his pockets. 
“ Give me tuppence, some one.” 

“Bot! Stay here, and don’t mess about in the 
sun.” 

“ Gi’ me tuppence.” 

“ I say, Beetle, you aren’t stuffy about anything, 
are you?” said McTurk, handing over the cop- 
pers. His tone was serious, for though Stalky 
often, and McTurk occasionally, manoeuvred on his 
own account, Beetle had never been known to do 
so in all the history of the confederacy. 

“ Ho, I’m not. I’m thinking.” 

“Well, we’ll come, too,” said Stalky, with a 
general’s suspicion of his aides. 

“ Don’t want you.” 

“ Oh, leave him alone. He’s been taken worse 
with a poem,” said McTurk. “He’ll go burbling 
down to the Pebbleridge and spit it all up in the 
study when he comes back.” 

“ Then why did he want the tuppence, Turkey? 

[ 86 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


He’s gettin’ too beastly independent. Hi ! There’s 
a bunny. No, it ain’t. It’s a cat, by Jove ! You 
plug first.” 

Twenty minutes later a boy with a straw hat at 
the back of his head, and his hands in his pockets, 
was staring at workmen as they moved about a 
half-finished cottage. He produced some ferocious 
tobacco, and was passed from the forecourt into the 
interior, where he asked many questions. 

“Well, let’s have your beastly epic,” said Tur- 
key, as they burst into the study, to find Beetle 
deep in Viollet-le-Duc and some drawings. “ We’ve 
had no end of a lark. ’ ’ 

“Epic? What epic? I’ve been down to the 
coastguard.” 

“No epic? Then we will slay you, O Beatle,” 
said Stalky, moving to the attack. “ You’ve got 
something up your sleeve. I know, when you talk 
in that tone ! ” 

“Your Uncle Beetle” — with an attempt to imi- 
tate Stalky’s war-voice — “ is a great man.” 

“Oh, no; he jolly well isn’t anything of the 
kind. You deceive yourself, Beetle. Scrag him, 
Turkey ! ” 

“A great man,” Beetle gurgled from the floor. 
“You are futile — look out for my tie! — futile 
burblers. I am the Great Man. I gloat. Ouch l 
Hear me ! ” 


7 


[ 87 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Beetle, de-ah ” — Stalky dropped unreservedly 
on Beetle’s chest — “ we love you, an’ you’re a poet. 
If I ever said you were a doggaroo, I apologize; 
but you know as well as we do that you can’t do 
anything by yourself without mucking it.” 

“ I’ve got a notion.” 

“And you’ll spoil the whole show if you don’t 
tell y our Uncle Stalky. Cough it up, ducky, and 
we’ll see what we can do. Notion, you fat im- 
postor — I knew you had a notion when you went 
away ! Turkey said it was a poem.” 

“I’ve found out how houses are built. Le’ me 
get up. The floor- joists of one room are the ceiling- 
joists of the room below.” 

“ Don’t be so filthy technical.” 

“Well, the man told me. The floor is laid on 
top of those joists — those boards on edge that we 
crawled over — but the floor stops at a partition. 
Well, if you get behind a partition, same as you did 
in the attic, don’t you see that you can shove any- 
thing you please under the floor between the floor- 
* boards and the lath and plaster of the ceiling 
below? Look here. I’ve drawn it.” 

He produced a rude sketch, sufficient to enlighten 
the allies. There is no part of the modem school 
curriculum that deals with architecture, and none 
of them had yet reflected whether floors and ceil- 
ings were hollow or solid. Outside his own imme- 
[ 88 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


diate interests the boy is as ignorant as the savage 
he so admires; but he has also the savage’s re- 
source. 

“ I see,” said Stalky. “ I shoved my hand there. 
An’ then ? ” 

“An’ then . . . They’ve been calling us 

stinkers, you know. We might shove somethin’ 
under — sulphur, or something that stunk pretty 
bad — an’ stink ’em out. I know it can be done 
somehow.” Beetle’s eyes turned to Stalky hand- 
ling the diagrams. 

“Stinks?” said Stalky interrogatively. Then 
his face grew luminous with delight. “ By gum ! 
I’ve got it. Horrid stinks ! Turkey ! ” He leaped 
at the Irishman. “ This afternoon — just after 
Beetle went away ! 8 he's the very thing ! ” 

“Come to my arms, my beamish boy,” caroled 
McTurk, and they fell into each other’s arms danc- 
ing. “ Oh, frabjous day ! Calloo, callay ! She 
will ! She will ! ” 

“ Hold on,” said Beetle. “ I don’t understand.” 

“Dearr man ! It shall, though. Oh, Artie, my 
pure-souled youth, let us tell our darling Reggie 
about Pestiferous Stinkadores.” 

“ Not until after call-over. Come on ! ” 

“ I say,” said Orrin, stiffly, as they fell into their 
places along the walls of the gymnasium. “The 
house are goin’ to hold another meeting.” 

[ 89 ] 


7 


STALKY & CO. 


“Hold away, then.” Stalky’s mind was else- 
where. 

“ It’s about you three this time.” 

“All right, give ’em my love . . . Here , 

sir, ’ ’ and he tore down the corridor. 

Gamboling like kids at play, with bounds and 
sidestarts, with caperings and curvetings, they led 
the almost bursting Beetle to the rabbit-lane, and 
from under a pile of stones drew forth the new-slain 
corpse of a cat. Then did Beetle see the inner 
meaning of what had gone before, and lifted up his 
voice in thanksgiving for that the world held war- 
riors so wise as Stalky and McTurk. 

“Well-nourished old lady, ain’t she?” said 
Stalky. “ How long d’you suppose it’ll take her to 
get a bit whiff in a confined space? ” 

“Bit whiff! What a coarse brute you are!” 
said McTurk. “ Can’t a poor pussy-cat get under 
King’s dormitory floor to die without your pursuin’ 
her with your foul innuendoes? ” 

“What did she die under the floor for?” said 
Beetle, looking to the future. 

“ Oh, they won’t worry about that when they 
find her,” said Stalky. 

“A cat may look at a king.” McTurk rolled 
down the bank at his own jest. “ Pussy, you don’t 
know how useful you’re goin’ to be to three pure- 
souled, high-minded boys.” 

[ 90 ] 


A N UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 

“ They’ll have to take up the floor for her, same 
as they did in Number Nine when the rat croaked. 
Big medicine — heap big medicine ! Phew ! Oh, 
Lord, I wish I could stop laughin’,” said Beetle. 

“ Stinks ! Hi, stinks ! Clammy ones ! ” Mc- 
Turk gasped as he regained his place. “ And” — 
the exquisite humor of it brought them sliding 
down together in a tangle — “ it’s all for the honor 
of the house, too ! ” 

“ An’ they’re holdin’ another meetin’ — on us,” 
Stalky panted, his knees in the ditch and his face in 
the long grass. “Well, let’s get the bullet out of 
her and hurry up. The sooner she’s bedded out the 
better. ’ ’ 

Between them they did some grisly work with a 
penknife; between them (ask not who buttoned her 
to his bosom) they took up the corpse and hastened 
back, Stalky arranging their plan of action at the 
full trot. 

The afternoon sun, lying in broad patches on the 
bed-rugs, saw three boys and an umbrella disappear 
into a dormitory wall. In five minutes they 
emerged, brushed themselves all over, washed their 
hands, combed their hair, and descended. 

“Are you sure you shoved her far enough un- 
der? ” said McTurk suddenly. 

“Hang it, man, I shoved her the full length of 
my arm and Beetle’s brolly. That must be about 
[ 91 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


six feet. She’s bung in the middle of King’s big 
upper ten-bedder. Eligible central situation, /call 
it. She’ll stink out his chaps, and Hartopp’s and 
Macrea’s, when she really begins to fume. I swear 
your Uncle Stalky is a great man. Do you realize 
what a great man he is, Beetle ? ’ ’ 

“ Well, I had the notion first, hadn’t I — ? only — ” 

“ You couldn’t do it without your Uncle Stalky, 
could you? ” 

“ They’ve been calling us stinkers for a week 
now,” said McTurk. “ Oh, won't they catch it ! ” 

“ Stinker ! Yah ! Stink-ah ! ” rang down the 
corridor. 

“ And she’s there,” said Stalky, a hand on either 
boy’s shoulder. “She — is — there, gettin’ ready to 
surprise ’em. Presently she’ll begin to whisper to 
’em in their dreams. Then she’ll whiff. Golly, 
how she’ll whiff ! Oblige me by thinkin’ of it for 
two minutes.” 

They went to their study in more or less of 
silence. There they began to laugh — laugh as only 
boys can. They laughed with their foreheads on 
the tables, or on the floor; laughed at length, curled 
over the backs of chairs or clinging to a book-shelf ; 
laughed themselves limp. 

And in the middle of it Orrin entered on behalf 
of the house. 

“Don’t mind us, Orrin; sit down. You don’t 
[ 92 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


know how we respect and admire you. There’s 
something about your pure, high young forehead, 
full of the dreams of innocent boyhood, that’s no 
end fetchin’. It is, indeed.” 

“ The house sent me to give you this.” He laid 
a folded sheet of paper on the table and retired 
with an awful front. 

“It’s the resolution! Oh, read it, some one. 
I’m too silly-sick with laughin’ to see,” said Beetle. 

Stalky jerked it open with a precautionary sniff. 

“Phew ! Phew ! Listen. ‘ The house notices 
with pain wnd contempt the attitude of indiference ’ 
— how many f’s in indifference, Beetle? ” 

“ Two for choice.” 

“Only one here — c adopted by the occupants 
of Number Five study in relation to the insults 
offered to Mr. Trout's house at the recent meeting in 
Number Twelve form-room , and the house hereby 
pass a vote of censure cm the said study.' That’s 
all.” 

“And she bled all down my shirt, too ! ” said 
Beetle. 

“ An’ I’m catty all oyer,” said McTurk, “ though 
I washed twice.” 

“An’ I nearly broke Beetle’s brolly plantin’ her 
where she would blossom ! ” 

The situation was beyond speech, but not 
laughter. There was some attempt that night to 
93 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


demonstrate against the three in their dormitory; 
so they came forth. 

“You see,” Beetle began suavely as he loosened 
his braces, “the trouble with you is that you’re a 
set of unthinkin’ asses. You’ve no more brains 
than spidgers. "We’ve told you that heaps of 
times, haven’t we?” 

“ We’ll give all three of you a dormitory lickin'. 
You always jaw at us as if you were prefects,” cried 
one. 

“ Oh, no, you won’t,” said Stalky, “ because you 
know that if you did you’d get the worst of it 
sooner or later. We aren’t in any hurry. We 
can afford to wait for our little revenges. You’ve 
made howlin’ asses of yourselves, and just as soon 
as King gets hold of your precious resolutions to- 
morrow you’ll find that out. If you aren’t sick 
an’ sorry by to-morrow night, I’ll — I’ll eat my 
hat.” 

But or ever the dinner-bell rang the next day 
Prout’s were sadly aware of their error. King re- 
ceived stray members of that house with an exag- 
gerated attitude of fear. Did they purpose to cause 
him to be dismissed from the College by unanimous 
resolution ? What were their views concerning the 
government of the school, that he might hasten to 
give effect to them? He would not offend them 
for worlds ; but he feared — he sadly feared — that 
[ 94 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


his own house, who did not pass resolutions (but 
washed), might somewhat deride. 

King was a happy man, and his house, basking in 
the favor of his smile, made that afternoon a long 
penance to the misled Prouts. And Prout him- 
self, with a dull and lowering visage, tried to think 
out the rights and wrongs of it all, only plunging 
deeper into bewilderment. Why should his house 
be called “ Stinkers ” ? Truly, it was a small thing, 
but he had been trained to believe that straws show 
which way the wind blows, and that there is no 
smoke without fire. He approached King in Com- 
mon-room with a sense of injustice, but King was 
pleased to be full of airy persiflage that tide, 
and brilliantly danced dialectical rings round 
Prout. 

“ Now,” said Stalky at bedtime, making pilgrim- 
age through the dormitories before the prefects 
came up, “ now what have you got to say for your- 
selves? Foster, Carton, Finch, Longbridge, Mar- 
lin, Brett ! I heard you chaps catchin’ it from 
King — he made hay of you — an’ all you could do 
was to wriggle an’ grin an’ say, ‘Yes, sir,’ an’ 
‘ No, sir,’ an’ ‘ O, sir,’ an’ ‘ Please, sir ’ ! You an’ 
your resolution ! Urh ! ” 

“ Oh, shut up, Stalky.” 

“ Not a bit of it. You’re a gaudy lot of resolu- 
tionists, you are ! You’ve made a sweet mess of it. 

[ 95 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Perhaps you’ll have the decency to leave us alone 
next time.” 

Here the house grew angry, and in many voices 
pointed out how this blunder would never have 
come to pass if Humber Five study had helped them 
from the first. 

“But you chaps are so beastly conceited, an’ — 
an’ you swaggered into the meetin’ as if we were a 
lot of idiots,” growled Orrin of the resolution. 

“That’s precisely what you are ! That’s what 
we’ve been tryin’ to hammer into your thick heads 
all this time,” said Stalky. “Hever mind, we’ll 
forgive you. Cheer up. You can’t help bein’ 
asses, you know,” and, the enemy’s flank deftly 
turned, Stalky hopped into bed. 

That night was the first of sorrow among the 
jubilant King’s. By some accident of under-floor 
drafts the cat did not vex the dormitory beneath 
which she lay, but the next one to the right; steal- 
ing on the air rather as a pale-blue sensation than 
as any poignant offense. But the mere adumbration 
of an odor is enough for the sensitive nose and clean 
tongue of youth. Decency demands that we draw 
several carbolized sheets over what the dormitory 
said to Mr. King and what Mr. King replied. He 
was genuinely proud of his house and fastidious in 
all that concerned their well-being. He came; he 
sniffed; he said things. Hext morning a boy in 
[ 96 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


that dormitory confided to his bosom friend, a fag 
of Macrea’s, that there was trouble in their midst 
which King would fain keep secret. 

But Macrea’s boy had also a bosom friend in 
Prout’s, a shock-headed fag of malignant disposi- 
tion, who, when he had wormed out the secret, told — 
told it in a high-pitched treble that rang along the 
corridor like a bat’s squeak. 

“ An’ — an’ they’ve been calling us 1 stinkers ’ all 
this week. Why, Ilarland minor says they simply 
can’t sleep in his dormitory for the stink. Come 
on ! ” 

“With one shout and with one cry” Prout’s 
juniors hurled themselves into the war, and through 
the interval between first and second lesson some 
fifty twelve-year-olds were embroiled on the gravel 
outside King’s windows to a tune whose leit-motif 
was the word “ stinker.” 

“ Hark to the minute-gun at sea I ” said Stalky. 
They were in their study collecting books for second 
lesson— Latin, with King. “I thought his azure 
brow was a bit cloudy at prayers. ‘ She is cornin’, 
sister Mary. She is ’ ” 

“ If they make such a row now, what will they 
do when she really begins to look up an’ take 
notice? ” 

“Well, no vulgar repartee, Beetle. All we 
want is to keep out of this row like gentlemen.” 
[ 97 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ ’Tis but a little faded flower.’ Where’s my 
Horace? Look here, I don’t understand what she 
means by stinkin’ out Rattray’s dormitory first. 
We holed in under White’s, didn’t we?” asked 
McTurk, with a wrinkled brow. 

“ Skittish little thing. She’s rompin’ about all 
over the place, I suppose.” 

“My Aunt ! King’ll be a cheerful customer at 
second lesson. I haven’t prepared my Horace one 
little bit, either,” said Beetle. “ Come on ! ” 

They were outside the form-room door now. It 
was within five minutes of the bell, and King might 
arrive at any moment. 

Turkey elbowed into a cohort of scuffling fags, 
cut out Thornton tertius (he that had been Har- 
land’s bosom friend), and bade him tell his tale. 

It was a simple one, interrupted by tears. Many 
of King’s house had already battered him for 
libel. 

“Oh, it’s nothing,” McTurk cried. “He says 
that King’s house stinks. That’s all.” 

“Stale!” Stalky shouted. “We knew that 
years ago, only we didn’t choose to run about 
shoutin’ ‘stinker.’ We’ve got some manners, if 
they haven’t. Catch a fag, Turkey, and make sure 
of it.” 

Turkey’s long arm closed on a hurried and anx- 
ious ornament of the Lower Second. 

[ 98 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


“ Oh, McTurk, please let me go. I don’t stink — 
I swear I don’t ! ” 

“ Guilty conscience ! ” cried Beetle. “ Who said 
you did? ” 

“ What d’you make of it? ” Stalky punted the 
small boy into Beetle’s arms. 

“ Snf ! Snf ! He does, though. I think it’s 
leprosy — or thrush. P’raps it’s both. Take it 
away.” 

“ Indeed, Master Beetle” — King generally came 
to the house-door for a minute or two as the hell 
rang — “we are vastly indebted to you for your 
diagnosis, which seems to reflect almost as much 
credit on the natural unwholesomeness of your mind 
as it does upon your pitiful ignorance of the diseases 
of which you discourse so glibly. We will, how- 
ever, test your knowledge in other directions.” 

That was a merry lesson, but, in his haste to 
scarify Beetle, King clean neglected to give him an 
imposition, and since at the same time he supplied 
him with many priceless adjectives for later use, 
Beetle was well content, and applied himself most 
seriously throughout third lesson (algebra with lit- 
tle Hartopp) to composing a poem entitled “ The 
Lazar-house.” 

After dinner King took his house to bathe in the 
sea off the Pebbleridge. It was an old promise ; but 
he wished he could have evaded it, for all Prout’s 
[ 99 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


lined up by the Fives Court and cheered with inten- 
tion. In his absence not less than half the school 
invaded the infected dormitory to draw their own 
conclusions. The cat had gained in the last twelve 
hours, but a battlefield of the fifth day could not 
have been so flamboyant as the spies reported. 

“My word, she is doin’ herself proud,” said 
Stalky. “Did you ever smell anything like it? 
Ah, an’ she isn’t under "White’s dormitory at all 
yet.” 

“But she will be. Give her time,” said Beetle. 
“ She’ll twine like a giddy honeysuckle. What 
howlin’ Lazarites they are! No house is justified in 
makin’ itself a stench in the nostrils of decent ” 

“ High-minded, pure-souled boys. Do you burn 
with remorse and regret?” said McTurk, as they 
hastened to meet the house coming up from the sea. 
King had deserted it, so speech was unfettered. 
Bound its front played a crowd of skirmishers — all 
houses mixed — flying, reforming, shrieking insults. 
On its tortured flanks marched the Hoplites, seniors 
hurling jests one after another— simple and primi- 
tive jests of the Stone Age. To these the three 
added themselves, dispassionately, with an air of 
aloofness, almost sadly. 

“ And they look all right, too,” said Stalky. “ It 
can’t be Battray, can it? Battray ? ” 

No answer. 


[ 100 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


“ Rattray, dear ? He seems stuffy about something 
or other. Look here, old man, we don’t bear any 
malice about your sending that soap to us last week, 
do we? Be cheerful, Rat. You can live this down 
all right. I dare say it’s only a few fags. Your 
house is so beastly slack, though.” 

“You aren’t going back to the house, are you? ” 
said McTurk. The victims desired nothing better. 
“ You’ve simply no conception of the reek up there. 
Of course, frowzin’ as you do, you wouldn’t notice 
it ; but, after this nice wash and the clean, fresh air, 
even you'd be upset. ’Much better camp on the 
Burrows. We’ll get you some straw. Shall we?” 
The house hurried in to the tune of “ John Brown’s 
body,” sung by loving schoolmates, and barricaded 
themselves in their form-room. Straightway Stalky 
chalked a large cross, with “Lord, have mercy 
upon us,” on the door, and left King to find it. 

The wind shifted that night and wafted a carrion- 
reek into Macrea’s dormitories ; so that boys in 
nightgowns pounded on the locked door between 
the houses, entreating King’s to wash. Number 
Five study went to second lesson with not more 
than half a pound of camphor apiece in their 
clothing; and King, too wary to ask for explana- 
tions, gibbered a while and hurled them forth. So 
Beetle finished yet another poem at peace in the 
study. 


r 101 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ They’re usin’ carbolic now. Malpas told me,” 
said Stalky. “ King thinks it’s the drains.” 

“ She’ll need a lot o’ carbolic,” said McTurk. 
“ No harm tryin’, I suppose. It keeps King out of 
mischief.” 

“ I swear I thought he was goin’ to kill me when 
I sniffed just now. He didn’t mind Burton major 
sniffin’ at me the other day, though. He never 
stopped Alexander howlin’ ‘ Stinker ! ’ into our 
form-room before — before we doctored ’em. He 
just grinned,” said Stalky. “ What was he froth- 
ing over you for, Beetle? ” 

“Aha! That was my subtle jape. I had him 
on toast. You know he always jaws about the 
learned Lipsius.” 

“‘Who at the age of four ’ — that chap?” said 
McTurk. 

“Yes. Whenever he hears I’ve written a poem. 
Well, just as I was sittin’ down, I whispered, ‘ How 
is our learned Lepsius ? ’ to Burton major. Old 
Butt grinned like an owl. He didn’t know what I 
was drivin’ at ; but King jolly well did. That was 
really why he hove us out. Ain’t you grateful? 
How shut up. I’m goin’ to write the c Ballad of 
the Learned Lipsius.’ ” 

“Keep clear of anything coarse, then,” said 
Stalky. “I shouldn’t like to be coarse on this 
happy occasion.” 


[ 102 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


“ Not for wo-orlds. What rhymes to ‘ stenches,’ 
some one? ” 

In Common-room at lunch King discoursed acridly 
to Prout of boys with prurient minds, who per- 
verted their few and baleful talents to sap discipline 
and corrupt their equals, to deal in foul imagery 
and destroy reverence. 

“ But you didn’t seem to consider this when your 
house called us — ah — stinkers. If you hadn’t as- 
sured me that you never interfere with another 
man’s house, I should almost believe that it was a 
few casual remarks of yours that started all this 
nonsense.” 

Prout had endured much, for King always took 
his temper to meals. 

“You spoke to Beetle yourself, didn’t you? 
Something about not bathing, and being a water- 
funk ? ” the school chaplain put in. “I was scor- 
ing in the pavilion that day.” 

“I may have — jestingly. I really don’t pretend 
to remember every remark I let fall among small 
boys ; and full well I know the Beetle has no feel- 
ings to be hurt.” 

“ May be; but he, or they — it comes to the same 
thing — have the fiend’s own knack of discovering a 
man’s weak place. I confess I rather go out of my 
way to conciliate Number Five study. It may be 
soft, but so far, I believe, I am the only man here 
8 [ 103 ] 


STALKY & CO. 

whom they haven’t maddened by their — well — at- 
tentions.” 

“ That is all beside the point. I flatter myself I 
can deal with them alone as occasion arises. But if 
they feel themselves morally supported by those 
who should wield an absolute and open-handed 
justice, then I say that my lot is indeed a hard 
one. Of all things I detest, I ac(mit that an}^thing 
verging on disloyalty among ourselves is the 
first.” 

The Common-room looked at one another out of 
the corners of their eyes, and Prout blushed. 

“I deny it absolutely,” he said. “ Er — in fact, 
I own that I personally object to all three of them. 
It is not fair, therefore, to ” 

“How long do you propose to allow it?” said 
King. 

“But surely,” said Macrae, deserting his usual 
ally, “the blame, if there be any, rests with you, 
King. You can’t hold them responsible for the — 
you prefer the good old Anglo-Saxon, I believe — 
stink in your house. My boys are complaining of 
it now.” 

“What can you expect? You know what boys 
are. Naturally they take advantage of what to 
them is a heaven-sent opportunity,” said little Har- 
topp. “What is the trouble in your dormitories, 
King?” 


[ 104 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


Mr. King explained that as he had made it the 
one rule of his life never to interfere with another 
man’s house, so he expected not to be too patently 
interfered with. They might be interested to learn 
— here the chaplain heaved a weary sigh — that he 
had taken all steps that, in his poor judgment, 
would meet the needs of the case. Nay, further, 
he had himself expended, with no thought of reim- 
bursement, sums, the amount of which he would 
not specify, on disinfectants. This he had done be- 
cause he knew by bitter — by most bitter — experi- 
ence that the management of the college was slack, 
dilatory, and inefficient. He might even add, almost 
as slack as the administration of certain houses 
which now thought fit to sit in judgment on his 
actions. With a short summary of his scholastic 
career, and a precis of his qualifications, including 
his degrees, he withdrew, slamming the door. 

“Heigho!” said the chaplain. “Ours is a 
dwarfing life — a belittling life, my brethren. God 
help all schoolmasters ! They need it.” 

“I don’t like the boys, I own” — Prout dug 
viciously with his fork into the table-cloth — “and 
I don’t pretend to be a strong man, as you know. 
But I confess I can’t see any reason why I should 
take steps against Stalky and the others because 

King happens to be annoyed by — by ” 

“Falling into the pit he has digged,” said little 
[ 105 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Hartopp. “ Certainly not, Prout. No one accuses 
you of setting one house against another through 
sheer idleness.” 

44 A belittling life— a belittling life.” The chap- 
lain rose. “I go to correct French exercises. By 
dinner King will have scored off some unlucky child 
of thirteen ; he will repeat to us every word of his 
brilliant repartees, and all will be well.” 

“But about those three. Are they so prurient- 
minded ? ” 

“Nonsense,” said little Hartopp. “If you 
thought for a minute, Prout, you would see that 
the 4 precocious flow of fetid imagery , 5 that King 
complains of, is borrowed wholesale from King. 
He 4 nursed the pinion that impelled the steel. ’ 
Naturally he does not approve. Come into the 
smoking-room for a minute. It isn’t fair to listen 
to boys; but they should be now rubbing it into 
King’s house outside. Little things please little 
minds.” 

The dingy den off the Common-room was never 
used for anything except gowns. Its windows were 
ground glass; one could not see out of it, but one 
could hear almost every word on the gravel outside. 
A light and wary footstep came up from Number 
Five. 

44 Battray ! ” in a subdued voice — Battray’s study 
fronted that way. 44 D ’you know if Mr. King’s 
[ 106 ] 


A 1ST UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


anywhere about? I’ve got a ” McTurk dis- 

creetly left the end of the sentence open. 

“No. He’s gone out,” said Rattray unguard- 
edly. 

“Ah ! The learned Lipsius is airing himself, is. 
he? His Royal Highness has gone to fumigate. ” 
McTurk climbed on the railings, where he held 
forth like the never-wearied rook. 

“ Now in all the Coll, there was no stink like the 
stink of King’s house, for it stank vehemently and 
none knew what to make of it. Save King. And 
he washed the fags privatim et seriatim. In the 
fishpools of Hesbon washed he them, with an apron 
about his loins.” 

“ Shut up, you mad Irishman ! ” There was the 
sound of a golf -ball spurting up gravel. 

“It’s no good getting wrathy, Rattray. We’ve 
come to jape with you. Come on, Beetle. They’re 
all at home. You can wind ’em.” 

“Where’s the Pomposo Stinkadore? ’Tisn’t 
safe for a pure-souled, high-minded boy to be seen 
round his house these days. Gone out, has he? 
Never mind. I’ll do the best I can, Rattray. I’m 
in loco parentis just now.” 

(“One for you, Prout,” whispered Macrea, for 
this was Mr. Prout’s pet phrase.) 

“ I have a few words to impart to you, my young 
friend. We will discourse together a while.” 

[ 107 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Here the listening Prout sputtered: Beetle, in a 
strained voice, had chosen a favorite gambit of 
King’s. 

“I repeat, Master Eattray, we will confer, and 
the matter of our discourse shall not be stinks, for 
that is a loathsome and obscene word. We will, 
with your good leave — granted, I trust, Master 
Eattray, granted, I trust — study this — this scabrous 
upheaval of latent demoralization. What impresses 
me most is not so much the blatant indecency with 
which you swagger abroad under your load of 
putrescence” (you must imagine this discourse 
punctuated with golf-balls, but old Eattray was 
ever a bad shot) “as the cynical immorality with 
which you revel in your abhorrent aromas. Far be 
it from me to interfere with another’s house ” 

(“ Good Lord ! ” said Prout, “ but this is King.” 

“Line for line, letter for letter; listen,” said lit- 
tle Hartopp.) 

“But to say that you stink, as certain lewd fel- 
lows of the baser sort aver, is to say nothing — less 
than nothing. In the absence of your beloved 
house-master, for whom no one has a higher regard 
than myself, I will, if you will allow me, explain the 
grossness — the unparalleled enormity — the appall- 
ing fetor of the stenches (I believe in the good old 
Anglo-Saxon word), stenches, sir, with which you 
have seen fit to infect your house. . . . Oh, 

[ 108 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 

bother ! I’ve forgotten the rest, but it was very 
beautiful. Aren’t you grateful to us for laborin’ 
with you this way, Rattray? Lots of chaps ’ud 
never have taken the trouble, but we’re grateful, 
Rattray.” 

“Yes, we’re horrid grateful,” grunted McTurk. 
“ We don’t forget that soap. We’re polite. Why 
ain’t you polite, Rat ? ” 

“ Hallo ! ” Stalky cantered up, his cap over one 
eye. “Exhortin’ the Whiffers, eh? I’m afraid 
they’re too far gone to repent. Rattray ! White ! 
Perowne! Malpas! No answer. This is distressin’. 
This is truly distressin’. Bring out your dead, you 
glandered lepers ! ” 

“You think yourself funny, don’t you?” said 
Rattray, stung from his dignity by this last. “ It’s 
only a rat or something under the floor. We’re 
going to have it up to-morrow.” 

“Don’t try to shuffle it off on a poor dumb ani- 
mal, and dead, too. I loathe prevarication. ’Pon 
my soul, Rattray ” 

“ Hold on. The Hartoffles never said £ ’Pon my 
soul ’ in all his little life,” said Beetle critically. 

(“ Ah ! ” said Prout to little Hartopp.) 

“Upon my word, sir, upon my word, sir, I ex- 
pected better things of you, Rattray. Why can 
you not own up to your misdeeds like a man? 
Have / ever shown any lack of confidence in you ? ” 
[ 109 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


(“It’s not brutality,” murmured little Hartopp, 
as though answering a question no one had asked. 
“ It’s boy; only boy.”) 

“ And this was the house,” Stalky changed from 
a pecking, fluttering voice to tragic earnestness. 
“This was the — the — open cesspit that dared to 
call us ‘ stinkers. ’ And now — and now, it tries to 
shelter itself behind a dead rat. You annoy me, 
Rattray. You disgust me ! You irritate me un- 
speakably ! Thank Heaven, I am a man of equable 
temper 5 ’ 

(“ This is to your address, Macrea,” said Prout. 

“ I fear so, I fear so.”) 

“ Or I should scarcely be able to contain myself 
before your mocking visage. ’ ’ 

“Cave!” in an undertone. Beetle had spied 
King sailing down the corridor. 

“And what may you be doing here, my little 
friends ? ” the house-master began. “ I had a fleet 
ing notion — correct me if I am wrong ” (the listeners 
with one accord choked) — “ that if I found you out- 
side my house I should visit you with dire pains and 
penalties.” 

“We were just goin’ for a walk, sir,” said Beetle. 

“ And you stopped to speak to Rattray en route f ” 

“Yes, sir. We’ve been throwing golf -balls,” 
said Rattray, coming out of the study. 

(“ Old Rat is more of a diplomat than I thought. 

[HO] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


So far lie is strictly within the truth,” said little 
Hartopp. “ Observe the ethics of it, Prout.”) 

“ Oh, you were sporting with them, were you? 
I must say I do not envy you your choice of asso- 
ciates. I fancied they might have been engaged 
in some of the prurient discourse with which they 
have been so disgustingly free of late. I should 
strongly advise you to direct your steps most care- 
fully in the future. Pick up those golf -balls.” lie 
passed on. 


Next day Richards, who had been a carpenter in 
the Navy, and to whom odd jobs were confided, was 
ordered to take up a dormitory floor ; for Mr. King 
held that something must have died there. 

“ We need not neglect all our work for a trump- 
ery incident of this nature ; though I am quite 
aware that little things please little minds. Yes, I 
have decreed the boards to be taken up after lunch 
under Richards’s auspices. I have no doubt it will 
be vastly interesting to a certain type of so-called 
intellect ; but any boy of my house or another’s 
found on the dormitory stairs will ipso facto render 
himself liable to three hundred lines.” 

The boys did not collect on the stairs, but most of 
them waited outside King’s. Richards had been 
bound to cry the news from the attic window, and, 
if possible, to exhibit the corpse. 

cm] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ ’Tis a cat, a dead cat ! ” Richards’s face 
showed purple at the window. He had been in 
the chamber of death and on his knees for some 
time. 

“ Cat be bio wed ! ” cried McTurk. “ It’s a dead 
fag left over from last term. Three cheers for 
King’s dead fag ! ” 

They cheered lustily. 

“ Show it, show it ! Let’s have a squint at it ! ” 
yelled the juniors. “ Give her to the Bug-hunters. ” 
(This was the ^Natural History Society). “ The cat 
looked at the King — and died of it ! Hoosh ! 
Yai ! Yaow ! Maiow ! Ftzz ! ” were some of 
the cries that followed. 

Again Richards appeared. 

“ She’ ve been” — he checked himself suddenly — 
4t dead a long taime.” 

The school roared. 

“Well, come on out for a walk,” said Stalky in 
a well-chosen pause. “ It’s all very disgustin’, and 
I do hope the Lazar-house won’t do it again.” 

“ Do what? ” a King’s boy cried furiously. 

“ Kill a poor innocent cat every time you want to 
get off washing. It’s awfully hard to distinguish 
between you as it is. I prefer the cat, I must say. 
She isn’t quite so whiff. What are you goin’ to 
do, Beetle? ” 

Je vais gloater. Je vais gloater tout le blessed 
[ 112 ] 


AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. 


afternoon. Jamais j’ai gloate comme je gloaterai 
aujourd ’’hui. JJous bunJcerons aux bunkers.” 

And it seemed good to them so to do. 

Down in the basement, where the gas flickers and 
the boots stand in racks, Richards, amid his black- 
ing-brushes, held forth to Oke of the Common-room, 
Gumbly of the dining-halls, and fair Lena of the 
laundry. 

“Yiss. Her were in a shockin’ staate an’ con- 
dition. Her nigh made me sick, I tal ’ee. But I 
rowted un out, and I rowted un out, an’ I made all 
shipshape, though her smelt like to bilges.” 

“Her died mousin’, I rackon, poor thing,” said 
Lena. 

“ Then her moused different to any made cat o’ 
God’s world, Lena. I up with the top-board, an’ 
she were lying on her back, an’ I turned un ovver 
with the brume-handle, an’ ’twas her back was all 
covered with the plaster from ’twixt the lathin’. 
Yiss, I tal ’ee. An’ under her head there lay, like, 
so’s to say, a little pillow o’ plaster druv up in front 
of her by raison of her slidin’ along on her back. 
No cat niver went mousin’ on her back, Lena. 
Some one had shoved her along right underneath, 
so far as they could shove un. Cats don’t make 
theyselves pillows for to die on. Shoved along, she 
were, when she was settin’ for to be cold, laike.” 

[ 113 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Oh, yeou’m too clever to live, Fatty. Yeou go 
get wed an’ taught some sense,” said Lena, the 
affianced of Gumbly. 

“Larned a little ’fore iver some maidens was 
born. Sarved in the Queen’s FTavy, I have, where 
yeou’m taught to use your eyes. Yeou go ’tend 
your own business, Lena.” 

“ Do ’ee mean what you’m been tellin’ us? ” said 
Oke. 

“ Ask me no questions, I’ll give ’ee no lies. 
Bullet-hole clane thru from side to side, an’ tu 
heart-ribs broke like withies. I seed un when I 
turned un ovver. They’m clever, oh, they’m 
clever, but they’m not too clever for old Bichards ! 
’Twas on the born tip o’ my tongue to tell, tu, but 
. . . he said us niver washed, he did. Let his 

dom boys call us ‘ stinkers,’ he did. Sarve un dom 
well raight, I say ! ” 

Bichards spat on a fresh boot and fell to his work, 

( chuckling. 


[ 114 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


They had dropped into the chaplain’s study for a 
Saturday night smoke — all four house-masters — and 
the three briars and the one cigar reeking in amity 
proved the Rev. John Gillett’s good generalship. 
Since the discovery of the cat, King had been too 
ready to see affront where none was meant, and the 
Reverend John, buffer-state and general confidant, 
had worked for a week to bring about a good un- 
derstanding. He was fat, clean-shaven, except for 
a big mustache, of an imperturbable good temper, 
and, those who loved him least said, a guileful 
Jesuit. He smiled benignantly upon his handiwork 
— four sorely tried men talking without very much 
malice. 

“ How remember,” he said, when the conversa- 
tion turned that way, “I impute nothing. But 
every time that any one has taken direct steps 
against Number Five study, the issue has been more 
or less humiliating to the taker.” 

“I can’t admit that. I pulverize the egregious 
Beetle daily for his soul’s good; and the others with 
him,” said King. 


[ 115 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Well, take your own case, King, and go back a 
couple of years. Do you remember when Prout 
and you were on their track — for hutting and tres- 
pass, wasn’t it ? Have you forgotten Colonel Dab- 
ney ? ” 

The others laughed. King did not care to be 
reminded of his career as a poacher. 

“ That was one instance. Again, when you had 
rooms below them — I always said that that was en- 
tering the lion’s den — you turned them out.” 

“ For making disgusting noises. Surely, Gillett, 
you don’t excuse ” 

“ All I say is that you turned them out. That 
same evening your study was wrecked.” 

“By Rabbits-Eggs — most beastly drunk — from 
the road,” said King. “ What has that ? ” 

The Reverend John went on. 

“ Lastly, they conceive that aspersions are cast 
upon their personal cleanliness — a most delicate 
matter with all boys. Ye-ry good. Observe how, 
in each case, the punishment fits the crime. A 
week after your house calls them ‘ stinkers, ’ King, 
your house is, not to put too fine a point on it, 
stunk out by a dead cat who chooses to die in the 
one spot where she can annoy you most. Again 
the long arm of coincidence ! Summa. You ac- 
cuse them of trespass. Through some absurd chain 
of circumstances — they may or may not be at the 
[ 116 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


other end of it — yon and Prout are made to appear 
as trespassers. You evict them. For a time your 
study is made untenable. I have drawn the parallel 
in the last case. Well ? ” 

“ She was under the centre of White’s dormi- 
tory,” said King. “ There are double floor-boards 
there to deaden noise. No boy, even in my own 
house, could possibly have pried up the boards with- 
out leaving some trace — and Rabbits-Eggs was phe- 
nomenally drunk that other night.” 

“ They are singularly favored by fortune. That 
is all I ever said. Personally, I like them im- 
mensely, and I believe I have a little of their confi- 
dence. I confess 1 like being called ‘ Padre. ’ They 
are at peace with me ; consequently I am not ; treated 
to bogus confessions of theft.” 

“You mean Mason’s case? ” said Prout heavily. 
“That always struck me as peculiarly scandalous. 
I thought the Head should have taken up the mat- 
ter more thoroughly. Mason may be misguided, 
but at least he is thoroughly sincere and means 
wefl.” 

“ I confess I cannot agree with you, Prout,” said 
the Reverend John. “He jumped at some silly 
tale of theft on their part; accepted another boy’s 
evidence without, so far as I can see, any inquiry; 
and — frankly, I think he deserved all he got.” 

“They deliberately outraged Mason’s best feel- 

[ 117 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


ings,” said Prout. u A word to me on their part 
would have saved the whole thing. But they pre- 
ferred to lure him on ; to play on his ignorance of 
their characters ” 

“ That may be,” said King, “ hut I don’t like Mason. 
I dislike him for the very reason that Prout advances 
to his credit. He means well.” 

u Our criminal tradition is not theft — among our- 
selves, at least,” said little Hartopp. 

“ For the head of a house that raided seven head of 
cattle from the innocent pot-wallopers of Hortham, 
isn’t that rather a sweeping statement ? ” said Macrae. 

“ Precisely so,” said Hartopp, unabashed. “ That, 
with gate-lifting, and a little poaching and hawk-hunt- 
ing on the cliffs, is our salvation.” 

“ It does us far more harm as a school — ” Prout 
began. 

“ Than any hushed-up scandal could? Quite so. 
Our reputation among the farmers is most unsavory. 
But I would much sooner deal with any amount of 
ingenious crime of that nature than — some other 
offenses.” 

“ They may be all right, but they are unboylike, 
abnormal, and, in my opinion, unsound,” Prout in- 
sisted. “ The moral effect of their performances must 
pave the way for greater harm. It makes me doubt- 
ful how to deal with them. I might separate them.” 

“ You might, of course; but they have gone up the 

[ 118 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


school together for six years. I shouldn’t care to do 
it,” said Macrae. 

“ They use the editorial ‘ we/ ” said King, irrele- 
vantly. “ It annoys me. ‘ Where’s your prose, 
Corkran? ’ ‘ Well, sir, we haven’t quite done it yet.’ 

< W e’ll bring it in a minute,’ and so on. And the 
same with the others.” 

“ There’s great virtue in that ‘ we,’ ” said little Har- 
topp. “ You know I take them for trig. McTurk 
may have some conception of the meaning of it; but 
Beetle is as the brutes that perish about sines and 
cosines. He copies serenely from Stalky, who posi- 
tively rejoices in mathematics.” 

“ Why don’t you stop it? ” said Prout. 

“ It rights itself at the exams. Then Beetle shows 
up blank sheets, and trusts to his ‘ English ’ to save 
him from a fall. I fancy he spends most of his time 
with me in writing verse.” 

“ I wish to Heaven he would transfer a little of his 
energy in that direction to Elegiacs.” King jerked 
himself upright. “He is, with the single exception 
of Stalky, the very vilest manufacturer of 1 barbarous 
hexameters ’ that I have ever dealt with.” 

“ The work is combined in that study,” said the 
chaplain. “ Stalky does the mathematics, McTurk 
the Latin, and Beetle attends to their English and 
French. At least, when he was in the sick-house last 
month ” 


9 


[ 119 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Malingering,” Prout interjected. 

“ Quite possibly. I found a very distinct falling off 
in their ‘Roman d’un Jeune Homme Pauvre ’ trans- 
lations.” 

“ I think it is profoundly immoral,” said Prout. 
“ Pve always been opposed to the study system.” 

“ It would be hard to find any study where the boys 
don’t help each other; but in Humber Five the thing 
has probably been reduced to a system,” said little 
Hartopp. “ They have a system in most things.” 

“ They confess as much,” said the Reverend John. 
“ I’ve seen McTurk being hounded up the stairs to 
elegise the ‘ Elegy in a Churchyard/ while Beetle and 
Stalky went to punt-about.” 

“ It amounts to systematic cribbing,” said Prout, 
his voice growing deeper and deeper. 

“ K o such thing,” little Hartopp returned. “ You 
can’t teach a cow the violin.” 

u In intention it is cribbing.” 

“ But we spoke under the seal of the confessional, 
didn’t we?” said the Reverend John. 

“ You say you’ve heard them arranging their work 
in this way, Gillett,” Prout persisted. 

“ Good Heavens ! Don’t make me Queen’s evi- 
dence, my dear fellow. Hartopp is equally incrimi- 
nated. If they ever found out that I had sneaked, 
our relations would suffer — and I value them.” 

“ I think your attitude in this matter is weak,” said 

[ 120 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


Prout, looking round for support. “It would l>e 
really better to break up the study — for a while — 
wouldn’t it? ” 

“ Oh, break it up by all means/’ said Macrae. “ "We 
shall see then if Gillett’s theory holds water.” 

“ Be wise, Prout. Leave them alone, or calamity 
will overtake you; and what is much more important, 
they will be annoyed with me. I am too fat, alas! 
to be worried by bad boys. Where are you going? ” 

“Nonsense! They would not dare — but I am 
going to think this out,” said Prout. “It needs 
thought. In intention they cribbed, and I must think 
out my duty.” 

“ He’s perfectly capable of putting the boys on their 
honor. It’s I that am a fool.” The Reverend J ohn 
looked round remorsefully. “ Never again will I for- 
get that a master is not a man. Mark my words,” said 
the Reverend John. “ There will be trouble.” 


But by the yellow Tiber 
Was tumult and affright. 

Out of the blue sky (they were still rejoicing over 
the cat war) Mr. Prout had dropped into Number 
Five, read them a lecture on the enormity of cribbing, 
and bidden them return to the form-rooms on Mon- 
day. They had raged, solo and chorus, all through 
[ 121 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


the peaceful Sabbath, for their sin was more or less the. 
daily practice of all the studies. 

“ What’s the good of cursing? ” said Stalky at last. 
“ We’re all in the same boat. We’ve got to go back 
and consort with the house. A locker in the form- 
room, and a seat at prep, in Number Twelve.” (Ho 
looked regretfully round the cozy study which Mc- 
Turk, their leader in matters of Art, had decorated 
with a dado, a stencil, and cretonne hangings.) 

“Yes! Heffy lurchin’ into the form-rooms like 
a frowzy old retriever, to see if we aren’t up to 
something. You know he never leaves his house 
alone, these days,” said McTurk. “ Oh, it will be 
giddy! ” 

“ Why aren’t you down watchin’ cricket? I like 
a robust, healthy boy. You mustn’t frowst in a form- 
room. Why don’t you take an interest in your house? 
Yah! ” quoted Beetle. 

“ Yes, why don’t we? Let’s! We’ll take an inter- 
est in the house. We’ll take no end of interest in 
the house! He hasn’t had us in the form-rooms for 
a year. We’ve learned a lot since then. Oh, we’ll 
make it a be-autiful house before we’ve done ! ’Mem- 
ber that chap in ‘ Eric ’ or ‘ St. Winifred’s ’ — Belial 
somebody? I’m goin’ to be Belial,” said Stalky, with 
an ensnaring grin. 

“ Bight O,” said Beetle, “ and I’ll be Mammon. 
I’ll lend money at usury — that’s what they do at all 
[ 122 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


schools accordin’ to the B. 0. P. Penny a week on a 
shillin’. That’ll startle Heffy’s weak intellect. Yon 
can he Lucifer, Turkey.” 

“ What have I got to do ? ” McTurk also smiled. 

“ ITead conspiracies — and cabals — and boycotts. 
Go in for that ‘ stealthy intrigue ’ that Heffy is always 
talkin’ about. Come on ! ” 

The house received them on their fall with the 
mixture of jest and sympathy always extended to boys 
turned out of their study. The known aloofness of 
the three made them more interesting. 

“ Quite like old times, ain’t it?” Stalky selected 
a locker and flung in his books. “We’ve come to 
sport with you, my young friends, for a while, because 
our beloved house-master has hove us out of our dig- 
gin’s.” 

“ ’Serve you jolly w T ell right,” said Orrin, “ you 
cribbers! ” 

“ This will never do,” said Stalky. “We can’t 
maintain our giddy prestige, Orrin, de-ah, if you make 
these remarks.” 

They wrapped themselves lovingly about the boy, 
thrust him to the opened window, and drew down the 
sash to the nape of his neck. With an equal swiftness 
they tied his thumbs together behind his back with a 
piece of twine, and then, because he kicked furiously, 
removed his shoes. 

There Mr. Prout happened to find him a few min- 
[ 123 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


utes later, guillotined and helpless, surrounded by a 
convulsed crowd who would not assist. 

Stalky, in an upper form-room, had gathered him- 
self allies against vengeance. Orrin presently tore up 
at the head of a boarding party, and the form-room 
grew one fog of dust through which boys wrestled, 
stamped, shouted, and yelled. A desk was carried 
away in the tumult, a knot of warriors reeled into and 
split a door-panel, a window was broken, and a gas-jet 
fell. Under cover of the confusion the three escaped 
to the corridor, whence they called in and sent up 
passers-by to the fray. 

“ Rescue, Kings! Kings! Kings! Humber Twelve 
form-room! Rescue, Prouts — Prouts! Rescue, Ma- 
craes! Rescue, Hartopps! ” 

The juniors hurried out like bees asw T arm, asking no 
questions, clattered up the staircase, and added them- 
selves to the embroilment. 

“ Kot bad for the first evening’s work,” said Stalky, 
rearranging his collar. “ I fancy Prout’ll be some- 
what annoyed. We’d better establish an alibi” So 
they sat on Mr. King’s railings till prep. 

“You see,” quoth Stalky, as they strolled up to prep, 
with the ignoble herd, “ if you get the houses well 
mixed up an’ scufflin’, it’s even bettin’ that some ass 
will start a real row. Hullo, Orrin, you look rather 
metagrobolized. ’ ’ 

“ It was all your fault, you beast! You started it. 
[ 124 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


"We’ve got two hundred lines apiece, and Heffy’s look- 
in’ for you. Just see what that swine Malpas did to 
my eye! ” 

“ I like your saying we started it. Who called us 
cribbers? Can’t your infant mind connect cause and 
effect yet? Some day you’ll find out that it don’t pay 
to jest with Number Five.” 

“Where’s that shillin’ you owe me?” said Beetle 
suddenly. 

Stalky could not see Prout behind him, but returned 
the lead without a quaver. 

“ I only owed you ninepence, you old usurer.” 

“ You’ve forgotten the interest,” said McTurk. “ A 
halfpenny a week per bob is Beetle’s charge. You 
must be beastly rich, Beetle.” 

“ Well, Beetle lent me sixpence.” Stalky came to 
a full stop and made as to work it out on his fingers. 
“ Sixpence on the nineteenth, didn’t he? ” 

“ Yes; but you’ve forgotten you paid no interest on 
the other bob — the one I lent you before.” 

“ But you took my watch as security.” The gam© 
was developing itself almost automatically. 

“ Never mind. Pay me my interest, or I’ll charge 
you interest on interest. Remember, I’ve got your 
note-of-hand ! ” shouted Beetle. 

“ You are a cold-blooded Jew,” Stalky groaned. 

“ Hush ! ” said McTurk very loudly indeed, and 
started as Prout came upon them. 

[ 125 ] 


STALKY & CO. 

“ I didn’t see you in that disgraceful affair in the 
form-room just now/’ said he. 

“ What, sir? We’re just come up from Mr. King’s," 
said Stalky. “ Please, sir, what am I to do about 
prep. ? They’ve broken the desk you told me to sit at, 
and the form’s just swimming with ink.” 

“ Find another seat — find another seat. D’you ex- 
pect me to dry-nurse you? I wish to know whether 
you are in the habit of advancing money to your 
associates, Beetle?” 

“ Ko, sir; not as a general rule, sir.” 

“ It is a most reprehensible habit. I thought that 
my house, at least, would be free from it. Even with 
my opinion of you, I hardly thought it was one of your 
vices.” 

“ There’s no harm in lending money, sir, is there ? 99 

“ I am not going to bandy words with you on your 
notions of morality. How much have you lent 
Corkran? ” 

“ I — I don’t quite know,” said Beetle. It is diffi- 
cult to improvise a going concern on the spur of the 
minute. 

“ You seemed certain enough just now.” 

“ I think it’s two and fourpence,” said McTurk, 
with a glance of cold scorn at Beetle. 

In the hopelessly involved finances of the study 
there was just that sum to which both McTurk and 
Beetle laid claim, as their share in the pledging of 
[ 126 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


Stalky’s second-best Sunday trousers. But Stalky had 
maintained for two terms that the money was his 
“commission” for effecting the pawn; and had, of 
course, spent it on a study “ brew.” 

u Understand this, then. You are not to continue 
your operations as a money-lender. Two and four- 
pence, you said, Corkran ? ” 

Stalky had said nothing, and continued so to do. 

“ Your influence for evil is quite strong enough 
without buying a hold over your companions.” He 
felt in his pockets, and (oh joy!) produced a florin 
and fourpence. “ Bring me what you call Corkran’s 
note-of-hand, and be thankful that I do not carry the 
matter any further. The money is stopped from your 
pocket-money, Corkran. The receipt to my study, at 
once.” 

Little they cared! Two and fourpence in a lump 
is worth six weekly sixpences any hungry day of the 
week. 

“But what the dooce is a note-of-hand?” said 
Beetle. “ I only read about it in a book.” 

“ Now you’ve jolly well got to make one,” said 
Stalky. 

“ Yes — but our ink don’t turn black till next day. 
S’pose he’ll spot that? ” 

“ Not him. He’s too worried,” said McTurk. 
“ Sign your name on a bit of impot-paper, Stalky, and 
write, ‘ I O U two and fourpence.’ Aren’t you grate- 
[ 127 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


ful to me for getting that out of Prout? Stalky’d 
never have paid. . . . Why, you ass ! ” 

Mechanically Beetle had handed over the money to 
Stalky as treasurer of the study. The custom of years 
is not lightly broken. 

In return for the document, Prout expounded to 
Beetle the enormity of money-lending, which, like 
everything except compulsory cricket, corrupted 
houses and destroyed good feeling among boys, made 
youth cold and calculating, and opened the door to all 
evil. Finally, did Beetle know of any other cases? 
If so, it was his duty as proof of repentance to let his 
house-master know. No names need be mentioned. 

Beetle did not know — at least, he was not quite sure, 
sir. How could he give evidence against his friends? 
The house might, of course — here he feigned an 
anguished delicacy — be full of it. He was not in a 
position to say. He had not met with any open com- 
petition in his trade ; but if Mr. Prout considered it was 
a matter that affected the honor of the house (Mr. 
Prout did consider it precisely that), perhaps the 
house-prefects would be better . . . 

He spun it out till half-way through prep. 

“ And,” said the amateur Shylock, returning to the 
form-room and dropping at Stalky’s side, “ if he don’t 
think the house is putrid with it, I’m seveiral Dutch- 
men — that’s all. . . . I’ve been to Mr. Prout’s 

study, sir.” This to the prep.-master. “He said I 

[ 128 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


could sit where I liked, sir. . . . Oh, he is just 

tricklin’ with emotion. . . . Yes, sir, I’m only 

askin’ Corkran to let me have a dip in his ink.” 

After prayers, on the road to the dormitories, Harri- 
son and Craye, senior house-prefects, zealous in their 
office, waylaid them with great anger. 

“ What have you been doing to Ileffy this time, 
Beetle? He’s been jawing us all the evening.” 

“ What has His Serene Transparency been vexin’ 
you for? ” said McTurk. 

“ About Beetle lendin’ money to Stalky,” began 
Harrison ; “ and then Beetle went and told him that 
there was any amount of money-lendin’ in the house.” 

“ No, you don’t,” said Beetle, sitting on a boot- 
basket. “ That’s just what I didn’t tell him. I spoke 
the giddy truth. He asked me if there was much of 
it in the house; and I said I didn’t know.” 

“ He thinks you’re a set of filthy Shy locks,” said 
McTurk. “ It’s just as well for you he don’t think 
you’re burglars. You know he never gets a notion out 
of his conscientious old head.” 

“ Well-ineanin’ man. Hid it all for the best.” 
Stalky curled gracefully round the stair-rail. “ Head 
in a drain-pipe. Full confession in the left boot. Bad 
for the honor of the house — very.” 

“ Shut up,” said Harrison. “ You chaps always be- 
have as if you were jawin’ us when we come to jaw 
you.” 


[ 129 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ You’re a lot too cheeky/’ said Craye. 

“ I don’t quite see where the cheek comes in, ex- 
cept on your part, in interferin’ with a private mat- 
ter between me an’ Beetle after it has been 
settled by Prout.” Stalky winked cheerfully at the 
others. 

“ That’s the worst of clever little swots,” said Mc- 
Turk, addressing the gas. “ They get made prefects 
before they have any tact, and then they annoy chaps 
who could really help ’em to look after the honor of 
the house.” 

“We won’t trouble you to do that! ” said Craye- 
hotly. 

“ Then what are you badgerin’ us for? ” said Beetle^ 
“ On your own showing, you’ve been so beastly slack, 
looking after the house, that Prout believes it’s a nest 
of money-lenders. I’ve told him that I’ve lent money 
to Stalky, and no one else. I don’t know whether he 
believes me, but that finishes my case. The rest is 
your business.” 

“JSTow we find out,” Stalky’s voice rose, “that 
there is apparently an organized conspiracy through- 
out the house. Por aught we know, the fags may be 
lendin’ and borrowin’ far beyond their means. We 
aren’t responsible for it. We’re only the rank and 
file.” 

“ Are you surprised we don’t wish to associate with 
the house?” said McTurk, with dignity. “We’ve 
[ 130 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


kept ourselves to ourselves in our study till we were 
turned out, and now we find ourselves let in for — for 
this sort of thing. It’s simply disgraceful.” 

“ Then you hector and bullyrag us on the stairs,” 
said Stalky, “ about matters that are your business 
entirely. You know we aren’t prefects.” 

a You threatened us with a prefect’s lickin’ just 
now,” said Beetle, boldly inventing as he saw the 
bewilderment in the faces of the enemy. 

“ And if you expect you’ll gain anything from us 
by your way of approachin’ us, you’re jolly well mis- 
taken. That’s all. Good-night.” 

They clattered up-stairs, injured virtue on every 
inch of their backs. 

"But — but what the dickens have we done? ” said 
Harrison, amazedly, to Craye. 

"I don’t know. Only — it always happens that 
way when one has anything to do with them. They’re 
so beastly plausible.” 

And Mr. Prout called the good boys into his study 
anew, and succeeded in sinking both his and their inno- 
cent minds ten fathoms deeper in blindfolded bedaze- 
ment. He spoke of steps and measures, of tone and 
loyalty in the house and to the house, and urged them 
to take up the matter tactfully. 

So they demanded of Beetle whether he had any 
connection with any other establishment. Beetle 
promptly went to his house-master, and wished to know 
[ 131 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


by what right Harrison and Craye had reopened a 
matter already settled between him and his house- 
master. In injured innocence no boy excelled 
Beetle. 

Then it occurred to Prout that he might have been 
unfair to the culprit, who had not striven to deny 
or palliate his offense. He sent for Harrison and 
Craye, reprehending them very gently for the tone 
they had adopted to a repentant sinner, and when 
they returned to their study, they used the language 
of despair. They then made headlong inquisition 
through the house, driving the fags to the edge of 
hysterics, and unearthing, with tremendous pomp and 
parade, the natural and inevitable system of small 
loans that prevails among small boys. 

“ You see, Harrison, Thornton minor lent me a 
penny last Saturday, because I was fined for breaking 
the window; and I spent it at Keyte’s. I didn’t know 
there was any harm in it. x\nd Wray major borrowed 
twopence from me when my uncle sent me a post-office 
order — I cashed it at Keyte’s — for five bob; but he’ll 
pay me back before the holidays. We didn’t know 
there was anything wrong in it.” 

They waded through hours of this kind of thing, 
but found no usury, or anything approaching to 
Beetle’s gorgeous scale of interest. The seniors — for 
the school had no tradition of deference to prefects 
outside compulsory games — told them succinctly to 
' [132] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


go about their business. They would not give evi- 
dence on any terms. Harrison was one idiot, and 
Craye was another; but the greatest of all, they said, 
was their house-master. 

When a house is thoroughly upset, however good its 
conscience, it breaks into knots and coteries — small 
gatherings in the twilight, box-room committees, and 
groups in the corridor. And when from group to 
group, with an immense affectation of secrecy, three 
wicked boys steal, crying “Cave” when there is no 
need of caution, and whispering “ Don’t tell ! ” on the 
heels of trumpery confidences that instant invented, 
a very fine air of plot and intrigue can be woven round 
such a house. 

At the end of a few days, it dawned on Prout that 
he moved in an atmosphere of perpetual ambush. 
Mysteries hedged him on all sides, warnings ran before 
his heavy feet, and countersigns were muttered behind 
his attentive back. McTurk and Stalky invented many 
absurd and idle phrases — catch-words that swept 
through the house as fire through stubble. It was 
a rare jest, and the only practical outcome of the 
Usury Commission, that one boy should say to a friend, 
with awful gravity, “ Do you think there’s much of it 
going on in the house? ” The other would reply, 
“Well, one can’t be too careful, you know.” The 
effect on a house-master of humane conscience and 
good intent may be imagined. Again, a man who 
[ 133 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


has sincerely devoted himself to gaining the esteem 
of his charges does not like to hear himself described, 
even at a distance, as “ Popularity Prout ” by a dark 
and scowling Celt with a fluent tongue. A rumor that 
stories — unusual stories — are told in the form-rooms, 
between the lights, by a boy who does not command 
his confidence, agitates such a man; and even elaborate 
and tender politeness — for the courtesy wise-grown 
men offer to a bewildered child was the courtesy that 
Stalky wrapped round Prout — restores not his peace of 
mind. 

“ The tone of the house seems changed — changed 
for the worse,” said Prout to Harrison and Craye. 
“Have you noticed it? I don’t for an instant im- 
pute ” 

He never imputed anything; but, on the other hand, 
he never did anything else, and, with the best inten- 
tions in the world, he had reduced the house-prefects 
to a state as nearly bordering on nervous irritation as 
healthy boys can know. "Worst of all, they began at 
times to wonder whether Stalky & Co. had not some 
truth in their often-repeated assertions that Prout was 
a gloomy ass. 

“ As you know, I am not the kind of man who puts 
himself out for every little thing he hears. I believe 
in letting the house work out their own salvation — 
with a light guiding hand on the reins, of course. But 
there is a perceptible lack of reverence — a lower tone 
[ 134 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


In matters that touch the honor of the house, a sort 
of hardness.” 

Oh, Prout he is a nobleman, a nobleman, a nobleman 1 
Our Heffy is a nobleman — 

He does an awful lot, 

Because his popularity — 

Oh, pop-u-pop-u-larity — 

His giddy popularity 

Would suffer did he not I 

The study door stood ajar; and the song, borne by 
twenty clear voices, came faint from a form-room. 
The fags rather liked the tune; the words were 
Beetle’s. 

“ That’s a thing no sensible man objects to,” said 
Prout with a lop-sided smile ; “ but you know straws 
show which way the wind blows. Can you trace it to 
any direct influence? I am speaking to you now as 
heads of the house.” 

“ There isn’t the least doubt of it,” said Harrison 
angrily. “ I know what you mean,, sir. It all began 
when Number Five study came to the form-rooms. 
There’s no use blinkin’ it, Craye. You know that, 
too.” 

“ They make things rather difficult for us, some- 
times,” said Craye. “ It’s more their manner than 
anything else, that Harrison means.” 

“ Do they hamper you in the discharge of your 
duties, then? ” 

10 


[ 135 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


11 Well, no, sir. They only look on and grin — and 
turn up their noses generally.” 

a Ah,” said Prout sympathetically. 

“ I think, sir,” said^ Craye, plunging into the busi- 
ness boldly, “ it would be a great deal better if they 
were sent back to their study — better for the house. 
They are rather old to be knocking about the form- 
rooms.” 

“ They are younger than Orrin, or Plint, and a 
dozen others that I can think of.” 

“ Yes, sir; but that’s different, somehow. They’re 
rather influential. They have a knack of upsettin’ 
things in a quiet way that one can’t take hold of. At 
least, if one does ” 

u And you think they would be better in their own 
study again ? ” 

Emphatically Harrison and Craye were of that opin- 
ion. As Plarrison said to Craye, afterwards, “ They’ve 
weakened our authority. They’re too big to lick; 
they’ve made an exhibition of us over this usury busi- 
ness, and we’re a laughing-stock to the rest of the 
school. I’m going up (for Sandhurst, understood) 
next term. They’ve managed to knock me out of 
half my work already with their — their lunacy. If 
they go back to their study we may have a little 
peace.” 

“ Hullo, Harrison.” McTurk ambled round the 
corner, with a roving eye on all possible horizons. 

’ [136 J 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


“ Bearin’ up, old man? That’s right. Live it down! 
Live it down! ” 

“ What d’you mean? ” 

“ You look a little pensive,” said McTurk. “ Ex- 
haustin’ job superintendin’ the honor of the house, 
ain’t it? By the way, how are you off for mares’- 
nests? ” 

“ Look here,” said Harrison, hoping for instant re- 
ward. “ We’ve recommended Prout to let you go 
back to your study.” 

“ The dooce you have ! And who under the sun 
are you to interfere between us and our house-master? 
Upon my Sam, you two try us very hard — you do, in- 
deed. Of course we don’t know how far you abuse 
your position to prejudice us with Mr. Prout; but 
when you deliberately stop me to tell me you’ve been 
makin’ arrangements behind our back — in secret — 
with Prout — I — I don’t know really what we ought 
to do.” 

“ That’s beastly unfair! ” cried Craye. 

“ It is.” McTurk had adopted a ghastly solemnity 
that sat well on his long, lean face. “ Hang it all ! A 
prefect’s one thing and an usher’s another; but you 
seem to combine ’em. You recommend this — you 
recommend that ! You say how and when we go back 
to our study! ” 

“But — but — we thought you’d like it, Turkey. 
We did, indeed. You know you’ll be ever so much 
[ 137 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


more comfortable there.” Harrison’s voice was al- 
most tearful. 

McTurk turned away as though to hide his emotions. 

“ They’re broke!” He hunted up Stalky and 
Beetle in a box-room. “ They’re sick! They’ve been 
beggin’ Heffy to let us go back to Humber Five. 
Poor devils! Poor little devils! ” 

“ It’s the olive branch,” was Stalky’s comment. 
“ It’s the giddy white flag, by gum! Come to think of 
it, we have metagrobolized ’em.” 

Just after tea that day, Mr. Prout sent for them to 
say that if they chose to ruin their future by neglect- 
ing their work, it was entirely their own affair. He 
wished them, however, to understand that their pres- 
ence in the form-rooms could not be tolerated one 
hour longer. He personally did not care to think of 
the time he must spend in eliminating the traces of 
their evil influences. How far Beetle had pandered 
to the baser side of youthful imagination he would 
ascertain later; and Beetle might be sure that if 
Mr. Prout came across any soul-corrupting conse- 
quences — 

u Consequences of what, sir? ” said Beetle, genu- 
inely bewildered this time; and McTurk quietly 
kicked him on the ankle for being “ fetched ” by 
Prout. 

Beetle, the house-master continued, knew very well 
what was intended. Evil and brief had been their 
[ 138 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


careers under his eye; and as one standing in loco 
j parentis to their yet uncontaminated associates, he 
was bound to take his precautions. The return of 
the study key closed the sermon. 

u But what was the baser-side-of -imagination busi- 
ness? " said Beetle on the stairs. 

“ I never knew such an ass as you are for justifyin' 
yourself/' said McTurk. “ I hope I jolly well skinned 
your ankle. Why do you let yourself be drawn by 
everybody? " 

“ Draws be blowed ! I must have' tickled him up 
in some way I didn't know about. If I’d had a notion 
of that before, of course I could have rubbed it in 
better. It's too late now. What a pity! 4 Baser 
side.' What was he drivin' at? " 

“ Never mind," said Stalky. “ I knew we could 
make it a happy little house. I said so, remember — 
but I swear I didn't think we'd do it so soon." 


“ No," said Prout most firmly in Common-room. 
“ I maintain that Gillett is wrong. True, I let them 
return to their study." 

“ With your known views on cribbing, too? " purred 
little Hartopp. “ What an immoral compromise! " 

“ One moment," said the Reverend John. “ I — we 
— all of us have exercised an absolutely heart-breaking 
discretion for the last ten days. Now we want to know. 

Confess — have you known a happy minute since " 

[ 139 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“As regards my house, I have not,” said Prout. 
“ Put you are entirely wrong in your estimate of those 
boys. In justice to the others — in self-defence ” 

“ Ha ! I said it would come to that,” murmured the 
Reverend John. 

“ 1 was forced to send them back. Their 

moral influence was unspeakable — simply unspeak- 
able.” 

And bit by bit he told his tale, beginning with 
Beetle’s usury, and ending with the house-prefects’ 
appeal. 

“ Beetle in the rdle of Shylock is new to me,” said 
King, with twitching lips. “ I heard rumors of 
it ” 

“Before?” said Prout. 

“ Ko, after you had dealt with them; but I was care- 
ful not to inquire. I never interfere with ” 

“ I myself,” said Hartopp, “ would cheerfully give 
him five shillings if he could work out one simple sum 
in compound interest without three gross errors.” 

“Why — why — why! ” Mason, the mathematical 
master, stuttered, a fierce joy on his face, “ you’ve 
been had — precisely the same as me ! ” 

“ And so you held an inquiry? ” Little Hartopp’s 
voice drowned Mason’s ere Prout caught the import 
of the sentence. 

“ The boy himself hinted at the existence of a good 
deal of it in the house,” said Prout. 

[ 140 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


“ He is past master in that line,” said the chaplain. 
“ But, as regards the honor of the house ” 

a They lowered it in a week. I have striven to 
build it up for years. My own house-prefects — and 
boys do not willingly complain of each other — be- 
sought me to get rid of them. You say you have their 
confidence, Gillett: they may tell you another tale. 
As far as I am concerned, they may go to the devil in 
their own way. Pm sick and tired of them,” said 
Prout bitterly. 

But it was the Reverend John, with a smiling coun- 
tenance, who went to the devil just after Number Five 
had cleared away a very pleasant little brew (it cost 
them two and fourpence) and was settling down to 
prep. 

“ Come in, Padre, come in,” said Stalky, thrusting 
forward the best chair. “ We’ve only met you official- 
like these last ten days.” 

“ You were under sentence,” said the Reverend 
John. a I do not consort with malefactors.” 

“ Ah, but we’re restored again,” said McTurk. 
“ Mr. Prout has relented.” 

“ Without a stain on our characters,” said Beetle. 
“ It was a painful episode, Padre, most painful.” 

“ Now, consider for a while, and perpend, mes 
enfants. It is about your characters that I’ve called 
to-night. In the language of the schools, what the 
dooce have you been up to in Mr. Prout’s house? It 
[ 141 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


isn't anything to laugh over. lie says that you so 
lowered the tone of the house he had to pack you back 
to your studies. Is that true ? ” 

“ Every word of it, Padre.” 

“ Don’t he flippant, Turkey. Listen to me. I’ve 
told you very often that no boys in the school have a 
greater influence for good or evil than you have. You 
know I don’t talk about ethics and moral codes, be- 
cause I don’t believe that the young of the human 
animal realizes what they mean for some years to come. 
All the same, I don’t want to think you’ve been per- 
verting the juniors. Don’t interrupt, Beetle. Listen 
to me! Mr. Prout has a notion that you have been 
corrupting your associates somehow or other.” 

“ Mr. Prout has so many notions, Padre,” said 
Beetle wearily. “ Which one is this? ” 

“ Well, he tells me that he heard you telling a story 
in the twilight in the form-room, in a whisper. And 
Orrin said, just as he opened the door, ‘ Shut up, 
Beetle; it’s too beastly.’ How then? ” 

“ You remember Mrs. Oliphant’s ‘ Beleaguered 
City ’ that you lent me last term? ” said Beetle. 

The Padre nodded. 

“ I got the notion out of that. Only, instead of a 
city, I made it the Coll, in a fog — besieged by ghosts 
of dead boys, who hauled chaps out of their beds in the 
dormitory. All the names are quite real. You tell 
it in a whisper, you know — with the names. Orrin 
[ 142 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


didn’t like it one little bit. None of ’em have ever let 
me finish it. It gets just awful at the end part.” 

“ But why in the world didn’t you explain to Mr. 
Prout, instead of leaving him under the impres- 
sion ? ” 

“ Padre Sahib,” said McTurk, "it isn’t the least 
good explainin’ to Mr. Prout. If he hasn’t one im- 
pression, he’s bound to have another.” . f ' 

“ ITe’d do it with the best o’ motives. He’s in loco 
parentis” purred Stalky. 

“ You young demons! ” the Reverend John replied. 
“ And am I to understand that the — the usury business 
was another of your house-master’s impressions? ” 

" W ell — we helped a little in that,” said Stalky. " I 
did owe Beetle two and fourpence — at least, Beetle 
says I did, but I never intended to pay him. Then 
we started a bit of an argument on the stairs, and — 
and Mr. Prout dropped into it accidental. That was 
how it was, Padre. He paid me cash down liko a 
giddy Dook (stopped it out of my pocket-money just 
the same), and Beetle gave him my note-of-hand all 
correct. I don’t know what happened after that.” 

" I was too truthful,” said Beetle. " I always am. 
You see, he was under an impression, Padre, and I sup- 
pose I ought to have corrected that impression ; but of 
course I couldn’t be quite certain that his house wasn’t 
given over to monev-lendin’, could I? I thought the 
house-prefects might know more about it than I did. 

[ 143 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


They ought to. They’re giddy palladiums of public 
schools.” 

“ They did, too — by the time they’d finished,” said 
McTurk. “ As nice a pair of conscientious, well- 
meanin’, upright, pure-souled boys as you’d ever want 
to meet, Padre. They turned the house upside down 
— Harrison and Craye — with the best motives in the 
world.” 

“ They said so. ‘ They said it very loud and clear. 
They went and shouted in our ear,’ ” said Stalky. 

“ My own private impression is that all three of you 
will infallibly be hanged,” said the Reverend J ohn. 

“ Why, we didn’t do anything,” McTurk replied. 
“ It was all Mr. Prout. Did you ever read a book 
about Japanese wrestlers? My uncle — he’s in the 
Havy — gave me a beauty once.” 

“ Don’t try to change the subject, Turkey.” 

“ I’m not, sir. I’m givin’ an illustration — same as 
a sermon. These wrestler-chaps have got some sort of 
trick that lets the other chap do all the work. Then 
they give a little wriggle, and he upsets himself. It’s 
called shibbuwichee or tokonoma , or somethin’. Mr. 
Prout’s a shibbuwicher . It isn’t our fault.” 

“ Did you suppose we went round corruptin’ the 
minds of the fags? ” said Beetle. “ They haven’t any, 
to begin with ; and if they had, they’re corrupted long 
ago. I’ve been a fag, Padre.” 

“ Well, I fancied I knew the normal range of your 

[ 144 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


iniquities; but if you take so much trouble to pile up 
circumstantial evidence against yourselves, you can’t 
blame any one if ” 

“ We don’t blame any one, Padre. We haven’t 
said a word against Mr. Prout, have we?” Stalky 
looked at the others. “We love him. He hasn’t a 
notion how we love him.” 

“ H’m! You dissemble your love very well. Have 
you ever thought who got you turned out of your 
study in the first place? ” 

“ It was Mr. Prout turned us out,” said Stalky, with 
significance. 

“ Well, I was that man. I didn’t mean it; but some 
words of mine, I’m afraid, gave Mr. Prout the im- 
pression ” 

Number Five laughed aloud. 

“ You see it’s just the same thing with you, Padre,” 
said McTurk. “ He is quick to get an impression, 
ain’t he? But you mustn’t think we don’t love him, 
’cause we do. There isn’t an ounce of vice about 
him.” 

A double knock fell on the door. 

“ The Head to see Number Five study in his study 
at once,” said the voice of Foxy, the school ser- 
geant. 

“ Whew! ” said the Reverend John. “ It seems to 
me that there is a great deal of trouble coming for some 
people.” 


[ 145 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ My word ! Mr. Prout’ s gone and told the Head,” 
said Stalky. “ He’s a moral double-ender. Hot fair, 
luggin’ the Head into a house-row.” 

“ I should recommend a copy-book on a — h’m — 
safe and certain part,” said the Reverend John dis- 
interestedly. 

“ Huh ! He licks across the shoulders, an* it would 
slam like a beastly barn-door,” said Beetle. “ Good- 
night, Padre. We’re in for it.” 

Once more they stood in the presence of the Head — 
Belial, Mammon, and Lucifer. But they had to deal 
with a man more subtle than them all. Mr. Prout had 
talked to him, heavily and sadly, for half an hour; and 
the Head had seen all that was hidden from the house- 
master. 

“ You’ve been bothering Mr. Prout,” he said pen- 
sively. a House-masters aren’t here to be bothered by 
boys more than is necessary. I don’t like being both- 
ered by these things. You are bothering me. That 
is a very serious offense. You see it? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Well, now, I purpose to bother you, on personal 
and private grounds, because you have broken into my 
time. You are much too big to lick, so I suppose I 
shall have to mark my displeasure in some other way. 
Say, a thousand lines apiece, a week’s gating, and a 
few things of that kind. Much too big to lick, aren’t 
you? ” 


[ 146 ] 


THE IMPRESSIONISTS. 


“ Oh, no, sir,” said Stalky cheerfully; for a week’s 
gating in the summer term is serious. 

“ Ve-ry good. Then we will do what we can. I 
wish you wouldn’t bother me.” 

It was a fair, sustained, equable stroke, with a little 
draw to it, but what they felt most was his unfairness 
in stopping to talk between executions. Thus: 

“ Among the — lower classes this would lay me open 
to a charge of — assault. You should be more grateful 
for your — -privileges than you are. There is a limit — 
one finds it by experience, Beetle — beyond which it 
is never safe to pursue private vendettas, because — 
don’t move — sooner or later one comes — into collision 
with the — higher authority, who has studied the ani- 
mal. Et ego — McTurk, please — in Arcadia vixi. 
There’s a certain flagrant injustice about this that 
ought to appeal to — your temperament. And that’s 
all! You will tell your house-master that you have 
been formally caned by me.” 

“ My word! ” said McTurk, wriggling his shoulder- 
blades all down the corridor. “ That was business! 
The Prooshan Bates has an infernal straight eye.” 

“ Wasn’t it wily of me to ask for the lickin’,” said 
Stalky, “ instead of those impots? ” 

“ Hot! We were in for it from the first. I knew 
the cock of his old eye,” said Beetle. “ I was within 
an inch of blubbing.” 

“ Well, I didn’t exactly smile,” Stalky confessed. 

[ 147 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Let’s go down to the lavatory and have a look at 
the damage. One of us can hold the glass and Pothers 
can squint.” 

They proceeded on these lines for some ten minutes. 
The wales were very red and very level. There was 
not a penny to choose between any of them for thor- 
oughness, efficiency, and a certain clarity of outline 
that stamps the work of the artist. 

"What are you doing down there?” Mr. Prout 
was at the head of the lavatory stairs, attracted by the 
noise of splashing. 

" We’ve only been caned by the Head, sir, and we’re 
washing off the blood. The Head said we were to tell 
you. We were coming to report ourselves in a min- 
ute, sir. ( Sotto voce.) That’s a score for Heffy! ” 

" Well, he deserves to score something, poor devil,” 
said McTurk, putting on his shirt. "We’ve sweated 
a stone and a half off him since we began.” 

" But look here, why aren’t we wrathy with the 
Head ? He said it was a flagrant injustice. So it is ! ” 
said Beetle. 

" Dear man,” said McTurk, and vouchsafed no 
further answer. 

It was Stalky who laughed till he had to hold on by 
the edge of a basin. 

"You are a funny ass! What’s that for?” said 
Beetle. 

" I’m — I’m thinking of the flagrant injustice of it! ” 
[ 148 ] “ 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


There was no disguising the defeat. The victory 
was to Prout, but they grudged it not. If he had 
broken the rules of the game by calling in the Head, 
they had had a good run for their money. 

The Reverend John sought the earliest oppor- 
tunity of talking things over. Members of a bach- 
elor Common-room, of a school where masters’ 
studies are designedly dotted among studies and 
form-rooms, can, if they choose, see a great deal of 
their charges. Humber Five had spent some cau- 
tious years in testing the Reverend John. He was 
emphatically a gentleman. He knocked at a study 
door before entering ; he comported himself as a 
visitor and not a strayed lictor ; he never prosed, 
and he never carried over into official life the confi- 
dences of idle hours. Prout was ever an unmiti- 
gated nuisance ; King came solely as an avenger of 
blood ; even little Hartopp, talking natural history, 
seldom forgot his office ; but the Reverend John 
was a guest desired and beloved by Humber 
Five. 


[ 149 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Behold him, then, in their only arm-chair, a bent 
briar between his teeth, chin down in three folds on 
his clerical collar, and blowing like an amiable 
whale, while Number Five discoursed of life as it 
appeared to them, and specially of that last inter- 
view with the Head — in the matter of usury. 

“ One licking once a week would do you an im- 
mense amount of good,” he said, twinkling and 
shaking all over ; ‘ 4 and, as you say, you were en- 
tirely in the right . 5 ’ 

“Ba-ather, Padre ! We could have proved it if 
he’d let us talk,” said Stalky; “but he didn’t. 
The Head’s a downy bird.” 

“He understands you perfectly. Ho! ho! 
"Well, you worked hard enough for it.” 

“But he’s awfully fair. He doesn’t lick a chap 
in the morning an’ preach at him in the afternoon,” 
said Beetle. 

“ He can’t ; he ain’t in Orders, thank goodness,” 
said McTurk. Number Five held the very strongest 
views on clerical head-masters, and were ever ready 
to meet their pastor in argument. 

“Almost all other schools have clerical Heads, ” 
said the Beverend John gently. 

“It isn’t fair on the chaps,” Stalky replied. 
“Makes ’em sulky. Of course it’s different with 
you, sir. You belong to the school — same as we do. 
I mean ordinary clergymen.” 

[ 150 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


“Well, I am a most ordinary clergyman ; and 
Mr. Hartopp’s in Orders, too.” 

44 Ye — es, but be took ’em after be came to the 
Coll. "We saw liim go up for bis exam. That’s all 
right,” said Beetle. 44 But just think if the Head 
went and got ordained ! ” 

44 What would happen, Beetle? ” 

44 Oh, the Coll, ’ud go to pieces in a year, sir. 
There’s no doubt o’ that.” 

44 How d’you know? ” The Reverend John was 
smiling. 

44 We’ve been here nearly six years now. There 
are precious few things about the Coll, we don’t 
know,” Stalky replied. 44 Why, even you came the 
term after I did, sir. I remember your asking our 
names in form your first lesson. Mr. King, Mr. 
Prout, and the Head, of course, are the only mas- 
ters senior to us — in that way.” 

4 4 Yes, we’ve changed a good deal — in Common- 
room.” 

44 Huh ! ” said Beetle with a grunt. 44 They came 
here, an’ they went away to get married. Jolly 
good riddance, too ! ” 

44 Doesn’t our Beetle hold with matrimony? ” 

44 Ho, Padre; don’t make fun of me. I’ve met 
chaps in the holidays who’ve got married house- 
masters. It’s perfectly awful ! They have babies 
and teething and measles and all that sort of thing 
11 [ 151 ] 


V 

HY & CO. 

right bung in the school ; and the masters’ wives 
give tea-parties — tea-parties, Padre ! — and ask the 
chaps to breakfast.” 

“That don’t matter so much,” said Stalky. 
“But the house-masters let their houses alone, and 
they leave everything to the prefects. Why, in one 
school, a chap told me, there w^ere big baize doors 
and a passage about a mile long between the house 
and the master’s house. They could do just what 
they pleased.” 

“ Satan rebuking sin with a vengeance.” 

“ Oh, larks are right enough ; but you know 
what we mean, Padre. After a bit it gets worse 
an’ worse. Then there’s a big bust-up and a row 
that gets into the papers, and a lot of chaps are 
expelled, you know.” 

“Always the wrong un’s ; don’t forget that. 
Have a cup of cocoa, Padre?” said McTurk with 
the kettle. 

“Ho, thanks ; I’m smoking. Always the wrong 
’uns? Pro-ceed, my Stalky.” 

“And then” — Stalky warmed to the work — 
“ everybody says, ‘Who’dha’ thought it? Shock- 
in’ boys ! Wicked little kids ! ’ It all comes of 
havin’ married house-masters, /think.” 

“ A Daniel come to judgment.” 

“But it does,” McTurk interrupted. “I’ve met 
chaps in the holidays, an’ they’ve told me the same 
[ 152 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


thing. It looks awfully pretty for one’s people to 
see — a nice separate house with a nice lady in charge, 
an’ all that. But it isn’t. It takes the house-mas- 
ters off their work, and it gives the prefects a heap 
too much power, an’ — an’ — it rots up everything. 
You see, it isn’t as if we w^ere just an ordinary 
school. We take crammers’ rejections as well as 
good little boys like Stalky. We’ve got to do that 
to make our name, of course, and we get ’em into 
Sandhurst somehow or other, don’t we?” 

“True, O Turk. Like a book thou talkest, Tur- 
key.” 

“ And so we want rather different masters, don’t 
you think so, to other places? We aren’t like the 
rest of the schools.” 

“ It leads to all sorts of bullyin’, too, a chap told 
me,” said Beetle. 

“ Well, you do need most of a single man’s time, 
I must say.” The Reverend John considered his 
hosts critically. “ But do you never feel that the 
world — the Common-room — is too much with you 
sometimes? ” 

“Hot exactly — in summer, anyhow.” Stalky’s 
eye roved contentedly to the window. “Our 
bounds are pretty big, too, and they leave us to 
ourselves a good deal.” 

“ For example, here am I sitting in your study, 
very much in your way, eh? ” 

[ 153 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Indeed you aren’t, Padre. Sit down. Don’t 
go, sir. You know we’re glad whenever you come.” 

There was no doubting the sincerity of the voices. 
The Reverend John flushed a little with pleasure 
and refilled his briar. 

“ And we generally know where the Common- 
room are,” said Beetle triumphantly. “ Didn’t 
you come through our lower dormitories last night 
after ten, sir?” 

“ I went to smoke a pipe with your house-master. 
Ko, I didn’t give him any impressions. I took a 
short cut through your dormitories.” 

“ I sniffed a whiff of ’baccy, this mornin’. Yours 
is stronger than Mr. Prout’s. /knew,” said Beetle, 
wagging his head. 

“Good heavens ! ” said the Reverend John ab- 
sently. It was some years before Beetle perceived 
that this was rather a tribute to innocence than ob- 
servation. The long, light, blindless dormitories, 
devoid of inner doors, were crossed at all hours of 
the night by masters visiting one another ; for bach- 
elors sit up later than married folk. Beetle had 
never dreamed that there might be a purpose in this 
steady policing. 

“Talking about bullying,” the Reverend John 
resumed, “ you all caught it pretty hot when you 
were fags, didn’t you ? ” 

“Well, we must have been rather awful little 
[ 154 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


beasts,” said Beetle, looking serenely over the gulf 
between eleven and sixteen. ‘ c My Hat, what bullies 
they were then — Fairburn, ‘ Gobby 5 Maunsell, and 
all that gang ! ” 

“ ’Member when ‘Gobby’ called us the Three 
Blind Mice, and w r e had to get up on the lockers 
and sing while he buzzed inkpots at us?” said 
Stalky. “ They were bullies if you like ! ” 

“But there isn’t any of it now,” said McTurk 
soothingly. 

“ That’s where you make a mistake. We’re all 
inclined to say that everything is all right as long 
as we aren’t ourselves hurt. I sometimes wonder if 
it is extinct — bullying.” 

“Fags bully each other horrid; but the upper 
forms are supposed to be swottin’ for exams. 
They’ve got something else to think about,” said 
Beetle. 

“Why? What do you think?” Stalky was 
watching the chaplain’s face. 

“I have my doubts.” Then, explosively, “On 
my word, for three moderately intelligent boys you 
aren’t very observant. I suppose you were too busy 
making things warm for your house-master to see 
what lay under your noses when you were in the 
form-rooms last week? ” 

“What, sir? I — I swear we didn’t see any- 
thing,” said Beetle. 


[ 155 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Then I’d advise yon to look. When a little 
chap is whimpering in a corner and wears his 
clothes like rags, and never does any work, and is 
notoriously the dirtiest little ‘ corridor-caution 5 in 
the Coll., something’s wrong somewhere.” 

“ That’s Clewer,” said McTurk under his breath. 

“ Yes, Clewer. He comes to me for his French. 
It’s his first term, and he’s almost as complete a 
wreck as you were, Beetle. He’s not naturally 
clever, but he has been hammered till he’s nearly an 
idiot.” 

“ Oh, no. They sham silly to get off more lick- 
ings,” said Beetle, “/know that.” 

“I’ve never actually seen him knocked about,” 
said the Beverend John. 

“The genuine article don’t do that in public,” 
said Beetle. “ Fairburn never touched me when 
any one was looking on.” 

“You needn’t swagger about it, Beetle,” said 
McTurk. “We all caught it in our time.” 

“ But I got it worse than any one,” said Beetle. 
“ If you want an authority on bullyin’, Padre, come 
to me. Corkscrews — brush-drill — keys — head- 
knucklin’ — arm-twistin’ — rockin’ — Ag Ags — and all 
the rest of it.” 

“Yes. I do want you as an authority, or rather 
I want your authority to stop it — all of you.” 

“What about Abana and Pharpar, Padre — Har- 
[ 156 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


rison and Craye? They are Mr. Prout’s pets,” 
said McTurk a little bitterly. “ We aren’t even 
sub-prefects.” 

“I’ve considered that, but on the other hand, 

since most bullying is mere thoughtlessness ” 

' “ Not one little bit of it, Padre,” said McTurk. 
“ Bullies like bullyin’. They mean it. They think 
it up in lesson and practise it in the quarters.” 

“Never mind. If the thing goes up to the pre- 
fects it may make another house-row. You’ve had 
one already. Don’t laugh. Listen to me. I ask 
you — my own Tenth Legion — to take the thing up- 
quietly. I want little Clewer made to look fairly 
clean and decent ” 

“ Plowed if / wash him ! ” whispered Stalky. 

“ Decent and self-respecting. As for the other 
boy, whoever he is, you can use your influence” — 
a purely secular light flickered in the chaplain’s, 
eye — “in any way you please to — to dissuade him. 
That’s all. I’ll leave it to you. G-ood-night, meg 
enf ants.” 

“Well, what are we goin’ to do?” Number 
Five stared at each other. 

“ Young Clewer would give his eyes lor a place 
to be quiet in. [know that,” said Beetle. “ If we 
made him a study-fag, eh? ” 

“ No ! ” said McTurk firmly. “ He’s a dirty lit- 
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STALKY & CO. 


tie brute, and he’d mess up everything. Besides, 
we ain’t goin’ to have any beastly Erickin’. D’you 
want to walk about with your arm round his 
neck?” 

“He’d clean out the jam-pots, anyhow ; an’ the 
burnt-porridge saucepan — it’s filthy now.” 

“Hot good enough,” said Stalky, bringing up 
both heels with a crash on the table. “ If we find 
the merry jester who’s been bullyin’ him an’ make 
him happy, that’ll be all right. Why didn’t we 
spot him when we were in the form-rooms, 
though? ” 

“Maybe a lot of fags have made a dead set at 
Clewer. They do that sometimes. ” 

“ Then we’ll have to kick the whole of the lower 
school in our house — on spec. Come on,” said Mc- 
Turk. 

“ Keep your hair on ! ¥e mustn’t make a fuss 
about the biznai. Whoever it is he’s kept quiet or 
we’d have seen him,” said Stalky. “We’ll walk 
round and sniff about till we’re sure.” 

They drew the house form-rooms, accounting for 
every junior and senior against whom they had sus- 
picions ; investigated, at Beetle’s suggestion, the 
lavatories and box-rooms, but without result. 
Everybody seemed to be present save Clewer. 

“Bum!” said Stalky, pausing outside a study 
door. “ Golly ! ” 


[ 158 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


A thin piping mixed with tears came muffled 
through the panels. 

“ As beautiful Kitty one morning was trip- 
ping 55 

“ Louder, you young devil, or I’ll buzz a book at 
you ! ” 

“ With a pitcher of milk — Oh, Campbell, please 
don’t ! To the fair of ” 

A book crashed on something soft, and squeals 
arose. 

“ Well, I never thought it was a study-chap, any- 
how. That accounts for our not spotting him,” said 
Beetle. “ Sefton and Campbell are rather hefty 
chaps to tackle. Besides, one can’t go into their 
study like a form-room.” 

“What swine!” McTurk listened. “Where’s 
the fun of it? I suppose Clewer’s faggin’ for 
them.” 

“They aren’t prefects. That’s one good job,” 
said Stalky, with his war-grin. “ Sefton and Camp- 
bell ! Um ! Campbell and Sefton ! Ah ! One of 
’em’s a crammer’s pup.” 

The two were precocious hairy youths between 
seventeen and eighteen, sent to the school in despair 
by parents who hoped that six months’ steady cram 
might, perhaps, jockey them into Sandhurst. Nomi- 
nally they were in Mr. Prout’s house ; actually they 
were under the Head’s eye ; and since he was very 
[ 159 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


careful never to promote strange new boys to pre- 
fectships, they considered they had a grievance 
against the school. Sefton had spent three months 
with a London crammer, and the tale of his adven- 
tures there lost nothing in the telling. Campbell, 
who had a fine taste in clothes and a fluent vocabu- 
lary, followed his lead in looking down loftily on 
the rest of the world. This was only their second 
term, and the school, used to what it profanely 
called “ crammers’ pups,” had treated them with 
rather galling reserve. But their whiskers — Sefton 
owned a real razor — and their mustaches were be- 
yond question impressive. 

“ Shall we go in an’ dissuade ’em?” McTurk 
asked. “ I’ve never had much to do with ’em, but 
I’ll bet my hat Campbell’s a funk.” 

“ No — o! That’s oratio directa ,” said Stalky, 
shaking his head. “I like oratio obliqua. ’Sides, 
where’d our moral influence be then? Think o’ 
that ! ” 

“Rot! What are you goin’ to do?” Beetle 
turned into Lower Number Nine form-room, next 
door to the study. 

“ Me ? ” The lights of war flickered over Stalky’s 
face. “ Oh, I want to jape with ’em. Shut up a 
bit ! ” 

He drove his hands into his pockets and stared out 
of window at the sea, whistling between his teeth. 

[ 160 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 

Then a foot tapped the floor ; one shoulder lifted ; 
he wheeled, and began the short quick double- 
shuffle — the war-dance of Stalky in meditation. 
Thrice he crossed the empty form-room, with com- 
pressed lips and expanded nostrils, swaying to the 
quick-step. Then he halted before the dumb Beetle 
and softly knuckled his head, Beetle bowing to the 
strokes. McTurk nursed one knee and rocked to and 
fro. They could hear Clewer howling as though 
his heart would break. 

“ Beetle is the sacrifice,” Stalky said at last. 
“ I’m sorry for you, Beetle. ’Member Galton’s 
4 Art of Travel ’ [one of the forms had been study- 
ing that pleasant work] an’ the kid whose bleatin’ 
excited the tiger? ” 

“ Oh, curse ! ” said Beetle uneasily. It was not 
his first season as a sacrifice. “ Can’t you get on 
without me? ” 

“ ’Fraid not, Beetle, dear. You’ve got to be 
bullied by Turkey an’ me. The more you howl, o’ 
course, the better it’ll be. Turkey, go an’ covet a 
stump and a box-rope from somewhere. We’ll tie 
him up for a kill— a la Galton. ’Member when 
< Molly ’ Fairburn made us cock-fight with our shoes 
off, an’ tied up our knees? ” 

“ But that hurt like sin.” 

“ Course it did. What a clever chap you are, 
Beetle ! Turkey’ll knock you all over the place. 

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STALKY & CO. 

’Member we’ve had a big row all round, an’ I’ve 
trapped you into doin’ this. Lend us your wipe. ” 

Beetle was trussed for cock-fighting ; but, in ad- 
dition to the transverse stump between elbow and 
knee, his knees were bound with a box-rope. In 
this posture, at a push from Stalky he rolled over 
sideways, covering himself with dust. 

“ Buffle his hair, Turkey. ISTow you get down, 
too. 6 The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger. ’ You 
two are in such a sweatin’ wax with me that you 
only curse. ’Member that. I’ll tickle you up with 
a stump. You’ll have to blub, Beetle.” 

“ Bight O ! I’ll work up to it in half a shake,” 
said Beetle. 

“How begin — and remember the bleatin’ o’ the 
kid.” 

“ Shut up, you brutes ! Let me up ! You’ve 
nearly cut my knees off. Oh, you are beastly 
cads ! Do shut up. ’Tisn’t a joke ! ” Beetle’s 
protest was, in tone, a work of art. 

“ Give it to him, Turkey ! Kick him ! Boll him 
over ! Kill him ! Don’t funk, Beetle, you brute. 
Kick him again, Turkey.” 

“ He’s not blubbin’ really. Boll up, Beetle, or 
I’ll kick you into the fender,” roared McTurk. 

They made a hideous noise among them, and the 
bait allured their quarry. 

“ Hullo ! What’s the giddy jest? ” Sefton and 

[ 162 J 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


Campbell entered to find Beetle on his side, his head 
against the fender, weeping copiously, while Mc- 
Turk prodded him in the back with his toes. 

“It’s only Beetle,” Stalky explained. “He’s 
shammin’ hurt. I can’t get Turkey to go for him 
properly.” 

Sefton promptly kicked both boys, and his face 
lighted. “All right, I’ll attend to ’em. Get up 
an’ cock-fight, you two. Give me the stump. I’ll 
tickle ’em, Here’s a giddy jest ! Come on, Camp- 
bell. Let’s cook ’em.” 

Then McTurk turned on Stalky and called him 
very evil names. 

“You said you were goin’ to cock-fight too, 
Stalky. Come on ! ” 

“ More ass you for believin’ me, then ! ” shrieked 
Stalky. 

“ Have you chaps had a row ? ” said Campbell. 

“Row?” said Stalky. “Huh! I’m only edu- 
catin’ them. I) ’you know anythin’ about cock- 
fighting, Seffy ? ” 

“ Do I know? Why, at Maclagan’s, where I was 
crammin’ in town, we used to cock-fight in his 
drawing-room, and little Maclagan daren’t say any- 
thing. But we were just the same as men there, of 
course. Do I know ? /’ll show you.” 

“ Can’t I get up? ” moaned Beetle, as Stalky sat 
on his shoulder. 


[ 163 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“Don’t jaw, you fat piffler. You’re going to 
fight Seffy.” 

“ He’ll slay me ! ” 

“Oh, lug ’em into our study,” said Campbell. 
“It’s nice an’ quiet in there. I’ll cock-fight Tur- 
key. This is an improvement on young Clewer.” 

“ Eight O ! I move it’s shoes-off for them an’ 
shoes-on for us,” said Sefton joyously, and the two 
were flung down on the study floor. Stalky rolled 
them behind an arm-chair. 

“ How I’ll tie you two up an’ direct the bull- 
fight. Golly, what wrists you have, Seffy. They’re 
too thick for a wipe ; got a box-rope ? ” said he. 

“Lots in the corner,” Sefton replied. “Hurry 
up ! Stop blubbin’, you brute, Beetle. We’re 
goin’ to have a giddy campaign. Losers have to 
sing for the winners — sing odes in honor of the con- 
queror. You call yourself a beastly poet, don’t you, 
Beetle? I’ll poet you.” He wriggled into posi- 
tion by Campbell’s side. 

Swiftly and scientifically the stumps were thrust 
through the natural crooks, and the wrists tied with 
well-stretched box-ropes to an accompaniment of 
insults from McTurk, bound, betrayed, and voluble 
behind the chair. 

Stalky set away Campbell and Sefton, and strode 
over to his allies, locking the door on the way. 

“And that’s all right,” said he in a changed voice. 

[ 164 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


u What the devil ?” Sefton began. Beetle’s 

false tears had ceased ; McTurk, smiling, was on 
his feet. Together they bound the knees and 
ankles of the enemy even more straitly. 

Stalky took the arm-chair and contemplated the 
scene with his blandest smile. A man trussed for 
cock-fighting is, perhaps, the most helpless thing in 
the world. 

44 4 The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger . 5 Oh, 
you frabjous asses ! ” He lay back and laughed till 
he could no more. The victims took in the situa- 
tion but slowly. 

44 We’ll give you the finest lickin’ you ever had in 
your young lives when we get up ! ” thundered Sef- 
ton from the floor. 44 You’ll laugh the other side of 
your mouth before you’ve done. What the deuce 
d’you mean by this ? ” 

4 4 You’ll see in two shakes,” said McTurk. 
44 Don’t swear like that. What we want to know 
is, why you two hulkin’ swine have been bully in’ 
Clewer? ” 

44 It’s none of your business.” 

44 What did you bully Clewer for ? ” The ques- 
tion was repeated with maddening iteration by each 
in turn. They knew their work. 

44 Because we jolly well chose ! ” was the answer 
at last. 44 Let’s get up.” Even then they could 
not realize the game. 


[ 165 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Well, now we’re goin’ to bully you because we 
jolly well choose. We’re goin’ to be just as fair to 
you as you were to Clewer. He couldn’t do any- 
thing against you. You can’t do anything to us. 
Odd, ain’t it? ” 

“Can’t we? You wait an’ see.” 

“Ah,” said Beetle reflectively, “that shows 
you’ve never been properly jested with. A public 
lickin’ ain’t in it with a gentle jape. Bet a bob 
you’ll weep an’ promise anything.” 

“Look here, young Beetle, we’ll half kill you 
when we get up. I’ll promise you that, at any 
rate.” 

“You’re going to be half killed first, though. 
Did you give Clewer Head-knuckles? ” 

“Did you give Clewer Head-knuckles?” Mc- 
Turk echoed. At the twentieth repetition — no boy 
can stand the torture of one unvarying query, which 
is the essence of bullying — came confession. 

“We did, confound you ! ” 

“ Then you’ll be knuckled ; ” and knuckled they 
were, according to ancient experience. Head-knuck- 
ling is no trifle ; “ Molly ” Fairburn of the old days 
could not have done better. 

“ Did you give Clewer Brush-drill? ” 

This time the question was answered sooner, and 
Brush-drill was dealt out for the space of five min- 
utes by Stalky’s watch. They could not even 
[ 166 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


writhe in their bonds. Ho brush is employed in 
Brush-drill. 

“ Did you give Clewer the Key ? 75 

“Ho; we didn’t. I swear we didn’t!” from 
Campbell, rolling in agony. 

“ Then we’ll give it to you, so you can see what 
it would be like if you had.” 

The torture of the Key — which has no key at all 
— hurts excessively. They endured several minutes 
of it, and their language necessitated the gag. 

“ Did you give Clewer Corkscrews ? ” 

“Yes. Oh, curse your silly souls ! Let us alone, 
you cads.” 

They were corkscrewed, and the torture of the 
Corkscrew — this has nothing to do with corkscrews 
— is keener than the torture of the Key. 

The method and silence of the attacks was break- 
ing their nerves. Between each new torture came 
the pitiless, dazing rain of questions, and when they 
did not answer to the point, Isabella-colored handker- 
chiefs were thrust into their mouths. 

“ How are those all the things you did to Clewer ? 
Take out the gag, Turkey, and let ’em answer.” 

“ Yes, I swear that was all. Oh, you’re killing 
us, Stalky ! ” cried Campbell. 

“Pre-cisely what Clewer said to you. I heard 
him. How we’re goin’ to show you what real bully- 
in’ is. What I don’t like about you, Sefton, is, 
12 [ 167 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


you come to the Coll, with your stick-up collars an’ 
patent-leather boots, an’ you think you can teach us 
something about bullying. Do you think you can 
teach us anything about bullying? Take out the 
gag and let him answer.” 

“ JSTo ! ” — ferociously. 

“ He says no. Bock him to sleep. Campbell can 
watch.” 

It needs three boys and two boxing-gloves to rock 
a boy to sleep. Again the operation has nothing to 
do with its name. Sefton was “ rocked” till his 
eyes set in his head and he gasped and crowed for 
breath, sick and dizzy. 

“My Aunt ! ” said Campbell, appalled, from his 
corner, and turned white. 

“Put him away,” said Stalky. “Bring on 
Campbell. How this is bully in’. Oh, I forgot ! 
I say, Campbell, what did you bully Clewer for? 
Take out his gag and let him answer.” 

“ I — I don’t know. Oh, let me off ! I swear I’ll 
make pax. Don’t ‘ rock ’ me ! ” 

“ ‘ The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger.’ He 
says he don’t know. Set him up, Beetle. Give me 
the glove an’ put in the gag.” 

In silence Campbell was “rocked” sixty -four 
times. 

“ I believe I’m goin’ to die ! ” he gasped. 

“lie says he is goin’ to die. Put him away. 

[ 168 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 

Now, Sefton ! Oh, I forgot ! Sefton, what did 
you bully Clewer for ? ” 

The answer is unprintable ; but it brought not 
the faintest flush to Stalky’s downy cheek. 

“ Make him an Ag Ag, Turkey ! ” 

And an Ag Ag was he made, forthwith. The 
hard-bought experience of nearly eighteen years was 
at his disposal, but he did not seem to appreciate it. 

w He says we are sweeps. Put him away ! Now, 
Campbell ! Oh, I forgot ! I say, Campbell, what 
did you bully Clewer for? ” 

Then came the tears — scalding tears ; appeals for 
mercy and abject promises of peace. Let them cease 
the tortures and Campbell would never lift hand 
against them. The questions began again — to an 
accompaniment of small persuasions. 

“ You seem hurt, Campbell. Are you hurt? ” 
“Yes. Awfully!” 

“ He says he is hurt. Are you broke ? ” 

“Yes, yes ! I swear I am. Oh, stop ! ” 

“ He says he is broke. Are you humble ? ” 

“Yes ! ” 

“ He says he is humble. Are you devilish hum- 
ble?” 

“ Yes !” 

“ He says he is devilish humble. Will you bully 
Clewer any more ? ’ ’ 

“No. No — ooh ! ” 


[ 169 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“He says he won’t bully Clewer. Or any one 
else? ” 

“ Ho. I swear I won’t.” 

“ Or any one else. What about that lickin’ you 
and Sefton were goin’ to give us? ” 

“ I won’t ! I won’t ! I swear I won’t ! ” 

“ He says he won’t lick us. Do you esteem your- 
self to know anything about bullyin’ ? ” 

“ Ho, I don’t ! ” 

“ He says he doesn’t know anything about bully- 
in’. Haven’t we taught you a lot ? ” 

“ Yes— yes ! ” 

“ He says we’ve taught him a lot. Aren’t you 
grateful? ” 

“Yes!” 

“ He says he is grateful. Put him away. Oh, I 
forgot ! I say, Campbell, what did you bully 
Clewer for ? ” 

He wept anew ; his nerves being raw. “ Because 
I was a bully. I suppose that’s what you want me 
to say ? ” 

“ He says he is a bully. Bight he is. Put him 
in the corner. Ho more japes for Campbell. How, 
Sefton ! ” 

“You devils ! You young devils ! ” This and 
much more as Sefton was punted across the carpet 
by skilful knees. 

‘ ‘ ‘ The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger. ’ We’re 
[ 170 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


goin’ to make you beautiful. Where does he keep 
hisshaving things? [Campbell told.] Beetle, get 
some water. Turkey, make the lather. We’re go- 
in’ to shave you, Seffy, so you’d better lie jolly still, 
or you’ll get cut. I’ve never shaved any one be- 
fore.” 

“ Don’t ! Oh, don’t ! Please don’t ! ” 

“ Gettin’ polite, eh? I’m only goin’ to take off 

one ducky little whisker ” 

“ I’ll — I’ll make it pax, if you don’t. I swear I’ll 
let you off your lickin’ when I get up ! ” 

u And half that mustache we’re so proud of. He 
says he’ll let us off our lickin’. Isn’t he kind ? ” 
McTurk laughed into the nickel-plated shaving- 
cup, and settled Sefton’s head between Stalky’s vise- 
like knees. 

“Hold on a shake,” said Beetle, “you can’t 
shave long hairs. You’ve got to cut all that mus- 
tache short first, an’ then scrope him.” 

“ Well, I’m not goin’ to hunt about for scissors. 
Won’t a match do ? Chuck us the match-box. He 
is a hog, you know; we might as well singe him. 
Lie still ! ” 

He lit a vesta, but checked his hand. “I only 
want to take off half, though.” 

“That’s all right.” Beetle waved the brush. 
“I’ll lather up to the middle — see? and you can 
burn off the rest.” 


[ 171 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


The thin-haired first mustache of youth fluffed off 
in flame to the lather-line in the centre of the lip, 
and Stalky rubbed away the burnt stumpage with 
?iis thumb. It was not a very gentle shave, but it 
abundantly accomplished its purpose. 

“ How the whisker on the other side. Turn him 
over ! ” Between match and razor this, too, was 
temoved. “ Give him his shaving-glass. Take the 
gag out. I want to hear what he’ll say.” 

But there were no words. Sefton gazed at the 
lop-sided wreck in horror and despair. Two fat 
tears rolled down his cheek. 

“ Oh, I forgot ! I say, Sefton, what did you 
bully Clewer for ? ” 

“ Leave me alone ! Oh, you infernal bullies, 
leave me alone ! Haven’t I had enough ? ” 

“He says we must leave him alone,” said Mc- 
Turk. 

“ He says we are bullies, an’ we haven’t even be- 
gun yet,” said Beetle. “You’re ungrateful, Seffy. 
Golly ! You do look an atrocity and a half ! ” 

“ He says he has had enough,” said Stalky. “ He 
errs ! ” 

“Well, to work, to work!” chanted McTurk, 
waving a stump. “ Come on, my giddy Harcissus. 
Don’t fall in love with your own reflection ! ” 

“Oh, let him off,” said Campbell from his cor- 
ner ; “ he’s blubbing, too.” 

[ 172 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 

Sefton cried like a twelve-year-old with pain, 
shame, wounded vanity, and utter helplessness. 

“ You’ll make it pax, Sefton, won’t you? You 
can’t stand up to those young devils ” 

“ Don’t be rude, Campbell, de-ah,” said McTurk, 
“ or you’ll catch it again ! ” 

“You cure devils, you know,” said Campbell. 

“What? for a little bullyin’ — same as you’ve 
been givin’ Clewer ! How long have you been 
jestin’ with him ? ” said Stalky. “ Ail this 
term ? ” 

“We didn’t always knock him about, though! ” 

“You did when you could catch him,” said 
Beetle, cross-legged on the floor, dropping a stump 
from time to time across Sef ton’s instep. “ Don’t 
I know it ! ” 

“ I — perhaps we did.” 

“ And you went out of your way to catch him? 
Don’t I know it ! Because he was an awful little 
beast, eh? Don’t I know it! How, you see, 
you'rQ awful beasts, and you’re gettin’ what he got 
— for bein’ a beast. Just because we choose.” 

“We never really bullied him — like you’ve done 
us.” 

“ Yah! ” said Beetle. “ They never really bully 
— c Molly ’ Fairburn didn’t. Only knock ’em about 
a little bit. That’s what they say. Only kick their 
souls out of ’em, and they go and blub in the box- 
[ 173 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


rooms. Shove their heads into the ulsters an’ blub. 
Write home three times a day — yes, you brute, I’ve 
done that — askin’ to be taken away. You’ve never 
been bullied properly, Campbell. I’m sorry you 
mad ejpax.” 

“I’m not! ” said Campbell, who was a humorist 
in a way. “ Look out, you’re slaying Sefton! ” 

In his excitement Beetle had used the stump 
unreflectingly, and Sefton was now shouting for 
mercy. 

“An’ you!” he cried, wheeling where he sat. 
“ You’ve never been bullied, either. Where were 
you before you came here? ” 

“ I — I had a tutor.” 

“Yah! You would. You never blubbed in your 
life. But you’re blubbin’ now, by gum. Aren’t 
you blubbin’ ? ” 

“Can’t you see, you blind beast?” Sefton fell 
over sideways, tear-tracks furrowing the dried 
lather. Crack came the cricket-stump on the curved 
latter-end of him. 

“ Blind, am I,” said Beetle, “ and a beast? Shut 
up, Stalky. I’m goin’ to jape a bit with our friend, 
d la ‘ Molly ’ Fairburn. I think I can see. Can’t 
I see, Sefton? ” 

“The point is well taken,” said McTurk, watch- 
ing the stump at work. “ You’d better say that he 
sees, Sefly.” 


[ 174 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


“ You do — you can! I swear you do!” yelled 
Sefton, for strong arguments were coercing 
him. 

“ Aren’t my eyes lovely ? ” The stump rose and 
fell steadily throughout this catechism. 

“Yes.” 

“ A gentle hazel, aren’t they ? ” 

“ Yes — oh, yes! ” 

“ What a liar you are! They’re sky-blue. Ain’t 
they sky-blue? ” 

“ Yes — oh, yes! ” 

“You don’t know your mind from one minute to 
another. You must learn — you must learn.” 

“What a bait you’re in!” said Stalky. “Keep 
your hair on, Beetle.” 

“I’ve had it done to me,” said Beetle. “ How — 
about my being a beast.” 

“ Pax — oh, pax ! ” cried Sefton; “ make it pax . 
I’ll give up! Let me off! I’m broke! I can’t 
stand it! ” 

“Ugh! Just when we were gettin’ our hand 
in!” grunted McTurk. “They didn’t let Clewer 
off, I’ll swear.” 

“Confess — apologize — quick!” said Stalky. 

From the floor Sefton made unconditional sur- 
render, more abjectly even than Campbell. He 
would never touch any one again. He would go 
softly all the days of his life. 

[ 175 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ We’ve got to take it, I suppose ?” said Stalky. 
“All right, Sefton. You’re broke? Yery good. 
Shut up, Beetle! But before we let you up, you 
an’ Campbell will kindly oblige us with ‘ Kitty of 
Coleraine ’ — d la Clewer.” 

“That’s not fair,” said Campbell; “we’ve sur- 
rendered.” 

“ ’Course you have. Now you’re goin’ to do what 
we tell you — same as Clewer would. If you hadn’t 
surrendered you’d ha’ been really bullied. Havin’ 
surrendered — do you follow, Seffy ? — you sing odes 
in honor of the conquerors. Hurry up! ” 

They dropped into chairs luxuriously. Campbell 
and Sefton looked at each other, and, neither taking 
comfort from that view, struck up “ Kitty of Cole- 
raine.” 

“ Vile bad,” said Stalky, as the miserable wailing 
ended. “If you hadn’t surrendered it would have 
been our painful duty to buzz books at you for sing- 
in’ out o’ tune. Now then.” 

He freed them from their bonds, but for several 
minutes they could not rise. Campbell was first on 
his feet, smiling uneasily. Sefton staggered to the 
table, buried his head in his arms, and shook with 
sobs. There was no shadow of fight in either — only 
amazement, distress, and shame. 

“Ca — can’t he shave clean before tea, please?” 
said Campbell. “It’s ten minutes to bell.” 

[ 176 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


Stalky shook his head. He meant to escort the 
half-shaved one to the meal. 

McTurk yawned in his chair and Beetle mopped 
his face. They were all dripping with excitement 
and exertion. 

“If I knew anything about it, I swear I’d give 
you a moral lecture,” said Stalky severely. 

“ Don’t jaw; they’ve surrendered,” said McTurk. 
“ This moral suasion biznai takes it out of a chap.” 

“ Don’t you see how gentle we’ve been? We 
might have called Clewer in to look at you,” said 
Stalky. “ ‘ The bleatin’ of the tiger excites the kid. ’ 
But we didn’t. We’ve only got to tell a few chaps 
in Coll, about this and you’d be hooted all over the 
shop. Your life wouldn’t be worth havin’. But 
we aren’t goin’ to do that, either. We’re strictly 
moral suasers, Campbell; so, unless you or Seffy 
split about this, no one will.” 

“I swear you’re a brick,” said Campbell. “I 
suppose I was rather a brute to Clewer.” 

“It looked like it,” said Stalky. “ But I don’t 
think Seffy need come into hall with cock-eye whis- 
kers. Horrid bad for the fags if they saw him. He 
can shave. Ain’t you grateful, Sefton? ” 

The head did not lift. Sefton was deeply asleep. 

“ That’s rummy,” said McTurk, as a snore mixed 
with a sob. “ ’Cheek, /think; or else he’s sham- 
min’.” 


[ 177 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“Ho, ’tisn’t,” said Beetle. “When 4 Molly * 
Fairburn had attended to me for an hour or so I used 
to go bung off to sleep on a form sometimes. Poor 
devil! But he called me a beastly poet, though.” 

“Well, come on.” Stalky loAvered his voice. 
“ Good-by, Campbell. ’Member, if you don’t talk, 
nobody will.” 

There should have been a war-dance, but that all 
three were so utterly tired that they almost went to 
sleep above the tea-cups in their study, and slept till 
prep. 


“A most extraordinary letter. Are all parents 
incurably mad ? What do you make of it?” said 
the Head, handing a closely written eight pages to 
the Beverend J ohn. 

“ ‘ The only son of his mother, and she a widow/ 
That is the least reasonable sort.” The chaplain 
read with pursed lips. 

“If half those charges are true he should be in 
the sick-house; whereas he is disgustingly well. 
Certainly he has shaved. I noticed that.” 

“Under compulsion, as his mother points out. 
How delicious! How salutary ! ” 

“You haven’t to answer her. It isn’t often I 
don’t know what has happened in the school; but 
this is beyond me.” 

“ If you asked me I should say seek not to pro- 
[ 178 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


pitiate. When one is forced to take crammers’ 
pups ” 

“ He was perfectly well at extra-tuition — with me 
— this morning,” said the Head, absently. “ Un- 
usually well behaved, too.” 

“ they either educate the school, or the 

school, as in this case, educates them. I prefer our 
own methods,” the chaplain concluded. 

“ You think it was that? ” A lift of the Head’s 
eyebrow. 

“I’m sure of it! And nothing excuses his trying 
to give the College a bad name.” 

“ That’s the line I mean to take with him,” the 
Head answered. 

The Augurs winked. 

A few days later the Reverend John called on 
Humber Five. “ Why haven’t we seen you before, 
Padre?” said they. 

“I’ve been watching times and seasons and events 
and men — and boys,” he replied. “I am pleased 
with my Tenth Legion. I make them my compli- 
ments. Clewer was throwing ink-balls in form this 
morning, instead of doing his work. He is now 
doing fifty lines for — unheard-of audacity.” 

“You can’t blame us, sir,” said Beetle. “You 
told us to remove the — er — pressure. That’s the 
worst of a fag.” 


[ 179 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ I’ve known boys five years his senior throw ink- 
balls, Beetle. To such an one have I given two hun- 
dred lines— not so long ago. And now I come to 
think of it, were those lines ever shown up? ” 

“Were they, Turkey?” said Beetle unblush- 
ingly. 

“ Don’t you think Clewer looks a little cleaner, 
Padre?” Stalky interrupted. 

“We’re no end of moral reformers,” said Mc- 
Turk. 

“It was all Stalky, but it was a lark,” said 
Beetle. 

“ I have noticed the moral reform in several quar- 
ters. Didn’t I tell you you had more influence than 
any boys in the Coll, if you cared to use it ? ” 

“ It’s a trifle exhaustin’ to use frequent — our kind 
of moral suasion. Besides, you see, it only makes 
Clewer cheeky. ’ ’ 

“ I wasn’t thinking of Clewer; I was thinking of 
— the other people, Stalky.” 

“ Oh, we didn’t bother much about the other peo- 
ple,” said McTurk. “ Did we?” 

“ But I did — from the beginning.” 

“ Then you knew, sir ? ” 

A downward puff of smoke. 

“Boys educate each other, they say, more than 
we can or dare. If I had used one half of the moral 

suasion you may or may not have employed ” 

[ 180 ] 


THE MORAL REFORMERS. 


“ With the best motives in the world. Don’t for- 
get our pious motives, Padre,” said McTurk. 

“ 1 suppose I should be now languishing in 

Bideford jail, shouldn’t I ? Well, to quote the Head, 
in a little business which we have agreed to forget, 

that strikes me as flagrant injustice 

What are you laughing at, you young sinners? 
Isn’t it true ? I will not stay to be shouted at. 
What I looked into this den of iniquity for was to 
find out if any one cared to come down for a bathe 
off the Eidge. But I see you won’t.” 

“ Won’t we, though! Half a shake, Padre Sahib, 
till we get our towels, and nous sommes awec vous !” 


[ 181 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


The Easter term was but a month old when Stettson 
major, a day-boy, contracted diphtheria, and the Head 
was very angry. He decreed a new and narrower set 
of bounds — the infection had been traced to an out- 
lying farmhouse — urged the prefects severely to lick 
all trespassers, and promised extra attentions from his 
own hand. There were no words bad enough for 
Stettson major, quarantined at his mother’s house, who 
had lowered the school-average of health. This he 
said in the gymnasium after prayers. Then he wrote 
some two hundred letters to as many anxious parents 
and guardians, and bade the school carry on. The 
trouble did not spread, but, one night, a dog-cart drove 
to the Head’s door, and in the morning the Head had 
gone, leaving all things in charge of Mr. King, senior 
house-master. The Head often ran up to town, where 
the school devoutly believed he bribed officials for 
early proofs of the Army Examination papers; but this 
absence was unusually prolonged. 

“ Downy old bird! ” said Stalky to the allies, one 
wet afternoon, in the study. “ He must have gone on 
a bend an’ been locked up, under a false name.” 

[ 188 ] 


A, LITTLE PREP. 


“ What for?” Beetle entered joyously into the 
libel. 

“ Forty shillings or a month for hackin’ the chucker- 
out of the Pavvy on the shins. Bates always has a 
spree when he goes to town. Wish he was back, 
-though. Pm about sick o’ King’s ‘ whips an’ scor- 
pions ’ an’ lectures on public-school spirit — yah ! — and 
scholarship ! 99 

“ ‘ Crass an’ materialized brutality of the middle- 
classes — readin’ solely for marks. Hot a scholar in 
the whole school,’ ” McTurk quoted, pensively boring 
holes in the mantel-piece with a hot poker. 

“ That’s rather a sickly way of spending an after- 
noon. Stinks, too. Let’s come out an’ smoke. Here’s 
a treat.” Stalky held up a long Indian cheroot. 
" ’Bagged it from my pater last holidays. I’m a bit 
shy of it, though; it’s heftier than a pipe. We’ll smoke 
it palaver-fashion. Hand it round, eh? Let’s lie up 
behind the old harrow on the Monkey-farm Road.” 

“ Out of bounds. Bounds beastly strict these days, 
too. Besides, we shall cat.” Beetle sniffed the 
cheroot critically. “ It’s a regular Pomposo Stinka- 
dore.” 

"You can; I shan’t. What d’you say, Turkey?” 

“ Oh, may’s well, I s’pose.” 

" Chuck on your cap, then. It’s two to one. Beetle, 
out you come ! ” 

They saw a group of boys by the notice-board in the 
13 [ 183 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


corridor ; little Foxy, the school sergeant, among 
them. 

“ More bounds, I expect,” said Stalky. “ Hullo, 
Foxibus, who are you in mournin’ for? ” There was 
a broad band of crape round Foxy’s arm. 

“ He was in my old regiment,” said Foxy, jerking 
his head towards the notices, where a newspaper cut- 
ting was thumb-tacked between call-over lists. 

“ By gum ! ” quoth Stalky, uncovering as he read. 

* It’s old Duncan — Fat-Sow Duncan — killed on duty 
at something or other Kotal. ‘ Rallyin > his men with 
conspicuous gallantry. ’ He would, of course. ( The 
body was recovered .’ That’s all right. They cut ’em 
up sometimes, don’t they, Foxy? ” 

“ Horrid,” said the sergeant briefly. 

“Poor old Fat-Sow! I was a fag when he left. 
How many does that make to us, Foxy? ” 

“ Mr. Duncan, he is the ninth. He come here when 
he was no bigger than little Grey tertius. My old 
regiment, too. Yiss, nine to us, Mr. Corkran, up to * 
date.” 

The boys went out into the wet, walking swiftly. 

“Wonder how it feels — to be shot and all that,” 
said Stalky, as they splashed down a lane. “ Where 
did it happen, Beetle? ” 

“ Oh, out in India somewhere. We’re always row- 
in’ there. But look here, Stalky, what is the’ good o’ 
siftin' under a hedge an’ cattin’? It’s be-eastly cold. 

[ 184 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


IPs be-eastly wet, and we’ll be collared as sure as a 
gun.” 

“ Shut up! Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky 
get you into a mess yet? ” Like many other leaders, 
Stalky did not dwell on past defeats. 

They pushed through a dripping hedge, landed 
among water-logged clods, and sat down on a rust- 
coated harrow. The cheroot burned with sputter- 
ings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each 
passing to the other between closed forefinger and 
thumb. 

“ Good job we hadn’t one apiece, ain’t it?” said 
Stalky, shivering through set teeth. To prove his 
words he immediately laid all before them, and they 
followed his example. 

“ I told you,” moaned Beetle, sweating clammy 
drops. “ Oh, Stalky, you are a fool ! ” 

“ Je cat , tu cat , il cat. Nous cations ! ” McTurk 
handed up his contribution and lay hopelessly on the 
cold iron. 

“ Something’s wrong with the beastly thing. I say, 
Beetle, have you been droppin’ ink on it? ” 

But Beetle was in no case to answer. Limp and 
empty, they sprawled across the harrow, the rust mark- 
ing their ulsters in red squares and the abandoned 
cheroot-end reeking under their very cold noses. Then 
- — they had heard nothing — the Head himself stood 
before them — the Head who should have been in town 
[ 185 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


bribing examiners — the Head fantastically attired in 
old tweeds and a deer-stalker! 

“Ah,” he said, fingering his mustache. “Very 
good. I might have guessed who it was. You will 
go back to the College and give my compliments to Mr. 
King and ask him to give you an extra-special licking. 
You will then do me five hundred lines. I shall be 
back to-morrow. Five hundred lines by five o’clock 
to-morrow. You are also gated for a week. This is 
not exactly the time for breaking bounds. Extra - 
special, please.” 

He disappeared over the hedge as lightly as he had 
come. There was a murmur of women’s voices in the 
deep lane. 

“ Oh, you Prooshan brute ! ” said McTurk as the 
voices died away. “ Stalky, it’s all your silly fault.” 

“ Kill him ! Kill him ! ” gasped Beetle. 

“I ca-an’t. I’m going to cat again ... I 
don’t mind that, but King’ll gloat over us horrid. 
Extra-special, ooh! ” 

Stalky made no answer — not even a soft one. They 
went to College and received that for which they had 
been sent. King enjoyed himself most thoroughly, 
for by virtue of their seniority the boys were exempt 
from his hand, save under special order. Luckily, he 
was no expert in the gentle art. 

“ ‘ Strange, how desire doth outrun performance/ ” 
said Beetle irreverently, quoting from some Shake- 
[ 186 ] 


A LITTLE PEEP. 


speare play that they were cramming that term. They 
regained their study and settled down to the imposi- 
tion. 

“ You’re quite right, Beetle.” Stalky spoke in silky 
and propitiating tones. “ How, if the Head had sent 
us up to a prefect, we’d have got something to re- 
member! ” 

“ Look here,” McTurk began with cold venom, 
“ we aren’t goin’ to row you about this business, be- 
cause it’s too bad for a row; but we want you to under- 
stand you’re jolly well excommunicated, Stalky. 
You’re a plain ass.” 

“ How was I to know that the Head ’ud collar us? 
What was he doin’ in those ghastly clothes, too? ” 

“ Don’t try to raise a side-issue,” Beetle grunted 
severely. 

“ Well, it was all Stettson major’s fault. If he hadn’t 
gone an’ got diphtheria ’t wouldn’t have happened. 
But don’t you think it rather rummy — the Head drop- 
pin’ on us that way? ” 

“ Shut up! You’re dead! ” said Beetle. “ We’ve 
chopped your spurs off your beastly heels. We’ve 
cocked your shield upside down and — and I don’t 
think you ought to he allowed to brew for a month.” 

“ Oh, stop jawin’ at me. I want ” 

“ Stop? Why — why, we’re gated for a week.” Mc- 
Turk almost howled as the agony of the situation over- 
came him. a A lickin’ from King, five hundred lines, 
[ 187 ] 


STALKY & CO. 

and a gatin’. D’you expect us to kiss you, Stalky, 
you beast? ” 

“Drop rottin’ for a minute. I want to find out 
about the Head bein’ where he was.” 

“Well, you have. You found him quite well and 
fit. Found him makin’ love to Stettson major’s 
mother. That was her in the lane — I heard her. And 
so we were ordered a lickin’ before a day-boy’s mother. 
Bony old widow, too,” said McTurk. “ Anything else 
you’d like to find out? ” 

“ I don’t care. I swear I’ll get even with him some 
day,” Stalky growled. 

“ Looks like it,” said McTurk. “ Extra-special, 
week’s gatin’ and five hundred . . . and now 
you’re goin’ to row about it! Help scrag him, 
Beetle ! ” Stalky had thrown his Yirgil at them. 

The Head returned next day without explanation, 
to find the lines waiting for him and the school a little 
relaxed under Mr. King’s viceroyalty. Mr. King had 
been talking at and round and over the boys’ heads, in 
a lofty and promiscuous style, of public-school spirit 
and the traditions of ancient seats; for he always im- 
proved an occasion. Beyond waking in two hundred 
and fifty young hearts a lively hatred of all other 
foundations, he accomplished little — so little, indeed, 
that when, two days after the Head’s return, he 
chanced to come across Stalky & Co., gated but ever 
resourceful, playing marbles in the corridor, he said 
[ 188 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


that he was not surprised — not in the least surprised. 
This was what he had expected from persons of their 
morale. 

“ But there isn’t any rule against marbles, sir. Very 
interestin’ game,” said Beetle, his knees white with 
chalk and dust. Then he received two hundred lines 
for insolence, besides an order to go to the nearest 
prefect for judgment and slaughter. 

This is w T hat happened behind the closed doors of 
Flint’s study, and Flint was then Head of the 
Games: — 

“ Oh, I say, Flint. King has sent me to you for 
playin’ marbles in the corridor an’ shoutin’ ‘ alley tor ’ 
an’ * knuckle down.’ ” 

“ What does he suppose I have to do with that? ” 
was the answer. 

u Dunno. Well?” Beetle grinned wickedly. 
“ What am I to tell him? He’s rather wrathy about 
it.” 

“ If the Head chooses to put a notice in the corridor 
forbiddin’ marbles, I can do something; but I can’t 
move on a house-master’s report. He knows that as 
well as I do.” 

The sense of this oracle Beetle conveyed, all 
unsweetened, to King, who hastened to interview 
Flint. 

How Flint had been seven and a half years at the 
College, counting six months with a London crammer, 
[ 189 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


from whose roof he had returned, homesick, to the 
Head for the final Army polish. There were four or 
five other seniors who had gone through much the 
same mill, not to mention boys, rejected by other estab- 
lishments on account of a certain overwhelmingness, 
whom the Head had wrought into very fair shape. It 
was not a Sixth to be handled without gloves, as King 
found. 

“ Am I to understand it is your intention to allow 
board-school games under your study windows, Flint? 

If so, I can only say ” He said much, and Flint 

listened politely. 

“ Well, sir, if the Head sees fit to call a prefects’ 
meeting we are bound to take the matter up. But the 
tradition of the school is that the prefects can’t move 
in any matter affecting the whole school without the 
Head’s direct order.” 

Much more was then delivered, both sides a little 
losing their temper. 

After tea, at an informal gathering of prefects in his 
study, Flint related the adventure. 

“ He’s been playin’ for this for a week, and now he’s 
got it. You know as well as I do that if he hadn’t 
been gassing at us the way he has, that young devil 
Beetle wouldn’t have dreamed of marbles.” 

a ¥e know that,” said Perowne, “ but that isn’t the 
question. On Flint’s showin’ King has called the pre- 
fects names enough to justify a first-class row. Cram- 
[ 190 ] 


A LITTLE PEEP. 


mers’ rejections, ill-regulated hobble-de-hoys, wasn't 
it? Now it’s impossible for prefects ” 

“ Rot,” said Flint. “ King’s the best classical cram 
we’ve got; and ’tisn’t fair to bother the Head with a 
row. He’s up to his eyes with extra-tu. and Army 
work as it is. Besides, as I told King, we aren't a 
public school. We’re a limited liability company 
payin’ four per cent. My father’s a shareholder, 
too.” 

“ What’s that got to do with it?” said Venner, a 
red-headed boy of nineteen. 

“Well, seems to me that we should be interferin’ 
with ourselves. We’ve got to get into the Army or — 
get out, haven’t we? King’s hired by the Council 
to teach us. All the rest’s flumdiddle. Can’t you 
see? ” 

It might have been because he felt the air was a 
little thunderous that the Head took his after-dinner 
cheroot to Flint’s study; but he so often began an 
evening in a prefect’s room that nobody suspected 
when he drifted in pensively, after the knocks that 
etiquette demanded. 

“ Prefects’ meeting? ” A cock of one wise eye- 
brow. 

“Not exactly, sir; we’re just talking things over. 
Won’t you take the easy chair? ” 

“ Thanks. Luxurious infants, you are.” He 
dropped into Flint’s big half-couch and puffed for 
[ 191 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


a while in silence. “ Well, since you’re all here, I may 
confess that I’m the mute with the bowstring.” 

The young faces grew serious. The phrase meant 
that certain of their number would be withdrawn from 
all further games for extra-tuition. It might also 
mean future success at Sandhurst; but it was present 
ruin for the First Fifteen. 

“ Yes, I’ve come for my pound of flesh. I ought 
to have had you out before the Exeter match; but it’s 
our sacred duty to beat Exeter.” 

“ Isn’t the Old Boys’ match sacred, too, sir? ” said 
Perowne. The Old Boys’ match was the event of the 
Easter term. 

“ We’ll hope they aren’t in training. How for the 
list. First I want Flint. It’s the Euclid that does it. 
You must work deductions with me. Perowne, extra 
mechanical drawing. Dawson goes to Mr. King for 
extra Latin, and Yenner to me for German. Have I 
damaged the First Fifteen much?” He smiled 
sweetly. 

“ Buined it, i’m afraid, sir,” said Flint. “ Can’t 
you let us off till the end of the term? ” 

“ Impossible. It will be a tight squeeze for Sand- 
hurst this year.” 

“ And all to be cut up by those vile Afghans, too,” 
said Dawson. “Wouldn’t think there’d be so much 
competition, would you? ” 

“ Oh, that reminds me. Crandall is coming down 

[ 192 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


with the Old Boys — I’ve asked twenty of them, but 
we shan’t get more than a weak team. I don’t know 
whether he’ll he much use, though. He was rather 
knocked about, recovering poor old Duncan’s body.” 

“ Crandall major — the Gunner? ” Perowne asked. 

u Ho, the minor — ‘ Toffee ’ Crandall — in a native 
infantry regiment. He was almost before your time, 
Perowne.” 

“ The papers didn’t say anything about him. We 
read about Fat-Sow, of course. What’s Crandall done, 
sir? ” 

“ I’ve brought over an Indian paper that his mother 
sent me. It was rather a — hefty, I think you say — 
piece of work. Shall I read it? ” 

The Head knew how to read. When he had finished 
the quarter-column of close type everybody thanked 
him politely. 

“ Good for the old Coll. ! ” said Perowne. “ Pity 
he wasn’t in time to save Fat-Sow, though. That’s 
nine to us, isn’t it, in the last three years? ” 

“ Yes . . . And I took old Duncan off all 

games for extra-tu. five years ago this term,” said the 
Head. “ By the way, who do you hand over the 
Games to, Flint? ” 

“ Haven’t thought yet. Who’d you recommend, 
sir? ” 

“ Ho, thank you. I’ve heard it casually hinted be- 
hind my back that the Prooshan Bates is a downy bird, 
[ 193 ] 


STALKY & CO. 

but he isn’t going to make himself responsible for a 
new Head of the Games. Settle it among yourselves* 
Good-night.” 

“ And that’s the man,” said Flint, when the door 
shut, “ that you want to bother with a dame’s school 
row.” 

“ I was only pullin’ your fat leg,” Perowne re- 
turned, hastily. “ You’re so easy to draw, Flint.” 

“ Well, never mind that. The Head’s knocked the 
First Fifteen to bits, and we’ve got to pick up the 
pieces, or the Old Boys will have a walk-over. Let’s 
promote all the Second Fifteen and make Big Side 
play up. There’s heaps of talent somewhere that we 
can polish up between now and the match.” 

The case was represented so urgently to the school 
that even Stalky and McTurk, who affected to despise 
football, played one Big-Side game seriously. They 
were forthwith promoted ere their ardor had time to 
cool, and the dignity of their Caps demanded that they 
should keep some show of virtue. The match-team 
was worked at least four days out of seven, and the 
school saw hope ahead. 

With the last week of the term the Old Boys began 
to arrive, and their welcome was nicely proportioned 
to their worth. Gentlemen cadets from Sandhurst 
and Woolwich, who had only left a year ago, but who 
carried enormous side, were greeted with a cheerful 
* Hullo! What’s the Shop like?” from those who 
[ 194 ] 


A LITTLE PEEP. 


had shared their studies. Militia subalterns had more 
consideration, hut it was understood they were not 
precisely of the true metal. Recreants who, failing 
for the Army, had gone into business or hanks were 
received for old sake’s sake, hut in no way made too 
much of. But when the real subalterns, officers and 
gentlemen full-blown — who had been to the ends of 
the earth and back again and so carried no side — came 
on the scene strolling about with the Head, the school 
divided right and left in admiring silence. And when 
one laid hands on Flint, even upon the Head of the 
Games, crying, “ Good Heavens ! What do you mean 
by growing in this way? You were a beastly little fag 
when I left,” visible haloes encircled Flint. They 
would walk to and fro in the corridor with the little 
red school-sergeant, telling news of old regiments; they 
would burst into form-rooms sniffing the well-remem- 
bered smells of ink and whitewash; they would find 
nephews and cousins in the lower forms and present 
them with enormous wealth ; or they would invade the 
gymnasium and make Foxy show off the new stock 
on the bars. 

Chiefly, though, they talked with the Head, who 
was father-confessor and agent-general to them all; for 
what they shouted in their unthinking youth, they 
proved in their thoughtless manhood — to wit, that the 
Prooshan Bates was “ a downy bird.” Young blood 
who had stumbled into an entanglement with a pastry- 
[ 195 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


‘cook’s daughter at Plymouth; experience who had 
come into a small legacy but mistrusted lawyers ; ambi- 
tion halting at cross-roads, anxious to take the one that 
would lead him farthest; extravagance pursued by the 
money-lender; arrogance in the thick of a regimental 
row — each carried his trouble to the Head ; and Chiron 
showed him, in language quite unfit for little boys, a 
quiet and safe way round, out, or under. So they 
overflowed his house, smoked his cigars, and drank his 
health as they had drunk it all the earth over when two 
or three of the old school had foregathered. 

“ Don’t stop smoking for a minute,” said the Head. 
“ The more you’re out of training the better for us. 
I’ve demoralized the Pirst Pifteen with extra-tu.” 

“ Ah, but we’re a scratch lot. Have you told ’em 
we shall need a substitute even if Crandall can play? ” 
said a Lieutenant of Engineers with a D.S.O. to his 
credit. 

“ He wrote me he’d play, so he can’t have been much 
hurt. He’s coming down to-morrow morning.” 

“ Crandall minor that was, and brought off poor 
Duncan’s body? ” The Head nodded. a Where are 
you going to put him? We’ve turned you out of 
house and home already, Head Sahib.” This was a 
Squadron Commander of Bengal Lancers, home on 
leave. 

“ I’m afraid he’ll have to go up to his old dormitory. 
You know old boys can claim that privilege. Yes, I 
[ 196 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


think leetle Crandall minor must bed down there once 
more.” 

a Bates Sahib ” — a Gunner flung a heavy ai*m 
round the Head’s neck — “ you’ve got something up 
your sleeve. Confess! I know that twinkle.” 

“ Can’t you see, you cuckoo? ” a Submarine Miner 
interrupted. “ Crandall goes up to the dormitory as 
an object-lesson, for moral effect and so forth. Isn’t 
that true, Head Sahib ? ” 

“ It is. Y ou know too much, Purvis. I licked you 
for that in ’79.” 

“ You did, sir, and it’s my private belief you chalked 
the cane.” 

“ ET-no. But I’ve a very straight eye. Perhaps 
that misled you.” 

That opened the flood-gates of fresh memories, and 
they all told tales out of school. 

When Crandall minor that was — Lieutenant R. 
Crandall of an ordinary Indian regiment — arrived 
from Exeter on the morning of the match, he was 
cheered along the whole front of the College, for the 
prefects had repeated the sense of that which the Head 
had read them in Flint’s study. When Prout’s house 
understood that he would claim his Old Boy’s right 
to a bed for one night, Beetle ran into King’s house 
next door and executed a public “ gloat ” up and down 
the enemy’s big form-room, departing in a haze of ink- 
pots. 


[ 197 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


a What d’you take any notice of these rotters for? ” 
said Stalky, playing substitute for the Old Boys, mag- 
nificent in black jersey, white knickers, and black 
stockings. “ I talked to him up in the dormitory 
when he was changin’. Pulled his sweater down for 
him. He’s cut about all over the arms — horrid purply 
ones. He’s goin’ to tell us about it to-night. I asked 
him to when I was lacin’ his boots.” 

“ Well, you have got cheek,” said Beetle, enviously. 
“ Slipped out before I thought. But he wasn’t a bit 
angry. He’s no end of a chap. I swear I’m goin’ to 
play up like beans. Tell Turkey ! ” 

The technique of that match belongs to a bygone 
age. Scrimmages were tight and enduring; hacking 
was direct and to the purpose; and around the scrim- 
mage stood the school, crying, “ Put down your heads 
and shove ! ” Toward the end everybody lost all sense 
of decency, and mothers of day-boys too close to the 
touch-line heard language not included in the bills. 
Ho one was actually carried off the field, but both sides 
felt happier when time was called, and Beetle helped 
Stalky and McTurk into their overcoats. The two 
had met in the many-legged heart of things, and, as 
Stalky said, had “ done each other proud.” As they 
swaggered woodenly behind the teams — substitutes do 
not rank as equals of hairy men — they passed a pony- 
carriage near the wall, and a husky voice cried, “ Well 
played. Oh, played indeed! ” It was Stettson major, 
[ 198 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


white-cheeked and hollow-eyed, who had fought his 
way to the ground under escort of an impatient coach- 
man. 

“ Hullo, Stettson,” said Stalky, checking. “ Is it 
safe to come near you yet? ” 

“ Oh, yes. Pm all right. They wouldn’t let me 
out before, but I had to come to the match. Your 
mouth looks pretty plummy.” 

“ Turkey trod on it accidental-done-a-purpose. 
Well, I’m glad you’re better, because we owe you 
something. You and your membranes got us into a 
sweet mess, young man.” 

“ I heard of that,” said the boy, giggling. “ The 
Head told me.” 

“ Dooce he did ! When?” 

“ Oh, come on up to Coll. My shin’ll stiffen if we 
stay jawin’ here.” 

“ Sb ut up, Turkey. I want to find out about this. 
Well?” 

“ He was stayin’ at our house all the time I was ill.” 

“What for? Heglectin’ the Coll, that way? 
’Thought he was in town.” 

“ I was off my head, you know, and they said I kept 
on callin’ for him.” 

“ Cheek! You’re only a day-boy.” 

“ He came just the same, and he about saved my 
life. I was all bunged up one night — just goin’ to 
croak, the doctor said — and they stuck a tube or some- 
14 [ 199 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


thin’ in my throat, and the Head sucked out the 
stuff” 

“Ugh! ’Shot if I would! ” 

“ He ought to have got diphtheria himself, the 
doctor said. So he stayed on at our house instead of 
going back. I’d ha’ croaked in another twenty min- 
utes, the doctor says.” 

Here the coachman, being under orders, whipped up 
and nearly ran over the three. 

“My Hat! ” said Beetle. “That’s pretty average 
heroic.” 

“ Pretty average! ” McTurk’s knee in the small of 
his back cannoned him into Stalky, who punted him 
back. “ You ought to be hung! ” 

“ And the Head ought to get the V.C.,” said Stalky. 
“ Why, he might have been dead and buried by now. 
But he wasn’t. But he didn’t. Ho! ho! He just 
nipped through the hedge like a lusty old blackbird. 
Extra-special, five hundred lines, an’ gated for a week 
— all sereno ! ” 

“ I’ve read o’ somethin’ like that in a book,” said 
Beetle. “ Gummy, what a chap! J ust think of it! ” 

“I’m thinking,” said McTurk; and he delivered a 
wild Irish yell that made the team turn round. 

“ Shut your fat mouth,” said Stalky, dancing with 
impatience. “ Leave it to your Uncle Stalky, and 
he’ll have the Head on toast. If you say a word, 
Beetle, till I give you leave, I swear I’ll slay you. 

[ 200 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


ITabeo Capitem crinibus minimis. I’ve got him by 
the short hairs! How look as if nothing had hap- 
pened.” 

There was no need of guile. The school was too* 
busy cheering the drawn match. It hung round the 
lavatories regardless of muddy boots while the team 
washed. It cheered Crandall minor whenever it; 
caught sight of him, and it cheered more wildly than 
ever after prayers, because the Old Boys in evening 
dress, openly twirling their mustaches, attended, and 
instead of standing with the masters, ranged them- 
selves along the wall immediately before the prefects * 
and the Head called them over, too — majors, minors,, 
and tertiuses, after their old names. 

“ Yes, it’s all very fine,” he said to his guests after 
dinner, “ but the boys are getting a little out of hand. 
There will be trouble and sorrow later, Fm afraid. 
You’d better turn in early, Crandall. The dormitory 
will be sitting up for you. I don’t know to what dizzy 
heights you may climb in your profession, but I do 
know you’ll never get such absolute adoration as you’re 
getting now.” 

“ Confound the adoration. I want to finish my 
cigar, sir.” 

“ It’s all pure gold. Go where glory waits, Cran- 
dall — minor.” 

The setting of that apotheosis was a ten-bed attic 
dormitory, communicating through doorless openings 
[ 201 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


with three others. The gas flickered over the raw 
pine washstands. There was an incessant whistling 
of drafts, and outside the naked windows the sea heat 
on the Pebbleridge. 

“ Same old bed — same old mattress, I believe,” said 
Crandall, yawning. “ Same old everything. “ Oh, 
but Fm lame! Fd no notion you chaps could play 
like this.” He caressed a battered shin. “ You’ve 
given us all something to remember you by.” 

It needed a few minutes to put them at their ease; 
and, in some way they could not understand, they were 
more easy when Crandall turned round and said his 
prayers — a ceremony he had neglected for some years. 

“ Oh, I am sorry. I’ve forgotten to put out the 
gas.” 

“ Flease don’t bother,” said the prefect of the 
dormitory. a Worthington does that.” 

A nightgowned twelve-year-old, who had been wait- 
ing to show off, leaped from his bed to the bracket and 
back again, by way of a washstand. 

“ How d’you manage when he’s asleep? ” said Cran- 
dall, chuckling. 

a Shove a cold cleek down his neck.” 

“ It was a wet sponge when I was junior in the 
dormitory. . . . Hullo! What’s happening? ” 

The darkness had filled with whispers, the sound of 
trailing rugs, bare feet on bare boards, protests, gig- 
gles, and threats such as : 

[ 202 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


“ Be quiet, you ass ! . . . Squattez-vous on the 

floor, then! ... I swear you aren’t going to sit 
on my bed! . . . Mind the tooth-glass/’ etc. 

“ Sta — Corkran said/’ the prefect began, his tone 
showing his sense of Stalky’s insolence, " that perhaps 
you’d tell us about that business with Duncan’s 
body.” 

" Yes — yes — yes,” ran the keen whispers. " Tell 
us.” 

" There’s nothing to tell. What on earth are you 
chaps hoppin’ about in the cold for? ” 

" Fever mind us,” said the voices. " Tell about 
Eat-Sow.” 

So Crandall turned on his pillow and spoke to the 
generation he could not see. 

" Well, about three months ago he was commanding 
a treasure-guard — a cart full of rupees to pay troops 
with — five thousand rupees in silver. He was coinin’ 
to a place called Fort Pearson, near Kalabagh.” 

" I was born there,” squeaked a small fag. " It was 
called after my uncle.” 

“ Shut up — you and your uncle ! Fever mind Him, 
Crandall.” 

"Well, ne’er mind. The Afridis found out that 
this treasure was on the move, and they ambushed the 
whole show a couple of miles before he got to the fort, 
and cut up the escort. Duncan was wounded, and the 
escort hooked it. There weren’t more than twenty 
[ 203 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Sepoys all told, and there were any amount of Afridis. 
As things turned out, I was in charge at Fort Pearson. 
Fact was, Fd heard the firing and was just going to 
see about it, when Duncan’s men came up. So we all 
turned back together. They told me something about 
an officer, but I couldn’t get the hang of things till I 
saw a chap under the wheels of the cart out in the 
open, propped up on one arm, blazing away with a 
revolver. You see, the escort had abandoned the cart, 
and the Afridis — they’re an awfully suspicious gang 
— thought the retreat was a trap — sort of draw, you 
know — and the cart was the bait. So they had left 
poor old Duncan alone. ’Minute they spotted how few 
we were, it was a race across the flat who should reach 
old Duncan first. We ran, and they ran, and we won, 
and after a little hackin’ about they pulled off. I 
never knew it was one of us till I was right on top of 
him. There are heaps of Duncans in the service, and 
of course the name didn’t remind me. He wasn’t 
changed at all hardly. He’d been shot through the 
lungs, poor old man, and he was pretty thirsty. I gave 
him a drink and sat down beside him, and — funny 
thing, too — he said, ‘ Hullo, Toffee!’ and I said, 
4 Hullo, Fat-Sow! hope you aren’t hurt,’ or something 
of the kind. But he died in a minute or two — never 
lifted his head off my knees. ... I say, you 
chaps out there will get your death of cold. Better 
go to bed.” 


[ 204 ] 


A LITTLE PEEP. 


“ All right. In a minute. But your cuts — your 

cuts. How did you get wounded? ” 

“ That was when we were taking the body back to 
the Port. They came on again, and there was a bit 
of a scrimmage.” 

“ Did you kill any one? ” 

“ Yes. Shouldn’t wonder. Good-night.” 

“ Good-night. Thank you, Crandall. Thanks 
awf’ly, Crandall. Good-night.” 

The unseen crowds withdrew. His own dormitory 
rustled into bed and lay silent for a while. 

“ I say, Crandall ” — Stalky’s voice was tuned to a 
wholly foreign reverence. 

“Well, what?” 

“ Suppose a chap found another chap croaking with 
diphtheria — all bunged up with it — and they stuck a 
tube in his throat and the chap sucked the stuff out, 
what would you say? ” 

“ Um,” said Crandall, reflectively. “ I’ve only 
heard of one case, and that was a doctor. He did it 
for a woman.” 

“ Oh, this wasn’t a woman. It was just a 
boy.” 

“ Makes it all the finer, then. It’s about the bravest 
thing a man can do. Why? ” 

“ Oh, I heard of a chap doin’ it. That’s all.” 

“ Then he’s a brave man.” 

“ Would you funk it? ” 

[ 205 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“Ra-ather. Anybody would. Fancy dying of 
diphtheria in cold blood.” 

“Well — ah! Er! Look here!” The sentence 
ended in a grunt, for Stalky had leaped out of bed and 
with McTurk was sitting on the head of Beetle, who 
would have sprung the mine there and then. 

Next day, which was the last of the term and given 
up to a few wholly unimportant examinations, began 
with wrath and war. Mr. King had discovered that 
nearly all his house — it lay, as you know, next door 
but one to Prout’s in the long range of buildings — had 
unlocked the doors between the dormitories and had 
gone in to listen to a story told by Crandall. He went 
to the Head, clamorous, injured, appealing; for he 
never approved of allowing so-called young men of the 
world to contaminate the morals of boyhood. Very 
good, said the Head. He would attend to it. 

“Well, Pm awf’ly sorry,” said Crandall guiltily. 
“ I don’t think I told ’em anything they oughtn’t 
to hear. Don’t let them get into trouble on my ac- 
count.” 

“ Tck! ” the Head answered, with the ghost of a 
wink. “ It isn’t the boys that make trouble; it’s the 
masters. However, Prout and King don’t approve of 
dormitory gatherings on this scale, and one must back 
up the house-masters. Moreover, it’s hopeless to pun- 
ish two houses only, so late in the term. We must be 
fair and include everybody. Let’s see. They have 
[ 206 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


a holiday task for the Easters, which, of course, none 
of them will ever look at. We will give the whole 
school, except prefects and study-boys, regular prep, 
to-night; and the Common-room will have to supply 
a master to take it. We must be fair to all.” 

“Prep, on the last night of the term. Whew! ” 
said Crandall, thinking of his own wild youth. “ I 
fancy there will be larks.” 

The school, frolicking among packed trunks, whoop- 
ing down the corridor, and “ gloating ” in form-rooms, 
received the news with amazement and rage. No 
school in the world did prep, on the last night of the 
term. This thing was monstrous, tyrannical, sub- 
versive of law, religion, and morality. They would 
go into the form-rooms, and they would take their 
degraded holiday task with them, but — here they 
smiled and speculated what manner of man the Com- 
mon-room would send up against them. The lot fell 
on Mason, credulous and enthusiastic, who loved 
youth. No other master was anxious to take that 
“ prep.,” for the school lacked the steadying influence 
of tradition; and men accustomed to the ordered rou- 
tine of ancient foundations found it occasionally in- 
subordinate. The four long form-rooms, in which all 
below the rank of study-boys worked, received him 
with thunders of applause. Ere he had coughed twice 
they favored him with a metrical summary of the 
marriage-laws of Great Britain, as recorded by the 
[ 207 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


High Priest of the Israelites and commented on by the 
leader of the host. The lower forms reminded him 
that it was the last day, and that therefore he must 
“ take it all in play.” When he dashed off to rebuke 
them, the Lower Fourth and Upper Third began with 
one accord to be sick, loudly and realistically. Mr, 
Mason tried, of all vain things under heaven, to argue 
with them, and a bold soul at a back desk bade him 
“ take fifty lines for not aiding up ’is ’and before 
speaking.” As one who prided himself upon the pre- 
cision of his English this cut Mason to the quick, and 
while he was trying to discover the offender, the Upper 
and Lower Second, three form-rooms away, turned out 
the gas and threw ink-pots. It was a pleasant and 
stimulating “prep.” The study-boys and prefects 
heard the echoes of it far off, and the Common-room 
at dessert smiled. 

Stalky waited, watch in hand, till half -past eight. 

“ If it goes on much longer the Head will come up,” 
said he. “We’ll tell the studies first, and then the 
form-rooms. Look sharp! ” 

He allowed no time for Beetle to be dramatic or 
McTurk to drawl. They poured into study after 
study, told their tale, and went again so soon as they 
saw they were understood, waiting for no comment; 
while the noise of that unholy “ prep.” grew and deep- 
ened. By the door of Flint’s study they met Mason 
dying towards the corridor. 

[ 208 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


“ He’s gone to fetch the Head. Hurry up ! Come 
on! ” 

They broke into Humber Twelve form-room abreast 
and panting. 

“ The Head ! The Head ! The Head ! ” That call 
stilled the tumult for a minute, and Stalky, leaping to 
a desk, shouted, “ He went and sucked the diphtheria 
stuff out of Stettson major’s throat when we thought 
he was in town. Stop rotting, you asses! Stettson 
major would have croaked if the Head hadn’t done it. 
The Head might have died himself. Crandall says it’s 
the bravest thing any livin’ man can do, and I ” — his 
voice cracked — “ the Head don’t know we know! ” 

McTurk and Beetle, jumping from desk to desk, 
drove the news home among the junior forms. There 
was a pause, and then, Mason behind him, the Head 
entered. It was in the established order of things that 
no boy should speak or move under his eye. He ex- 
pected the hush of awe. He was received with cheers 
—steady, ceaseless cheering. Being a wise man, he 
went away, and the forms were silent and a little 
frightened. 

“ It’s all right,” said Stalky. “ He can’t do much. 
’Tisn’t as if you’d pulled the desks up like we did when 
old Carleton took prep. once. Keep it up ! Hear ’em 
cheering in the studies! ” He rocketed out with a 
yell, to find Flint and the prefects lifting the roof off 
the corridor. 


[ 209 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


When the Head of a limited liability company, pay- 
ing four per cent., is cheered on his saintly way to 
prayers, not only by four form-rooms of boys waiting 
punishment, but by his trusted prefects, he can either 
ask for an explanation or go his road with dignity, 
while the senior house-master glares like an excited 
cat and points out to a white and trembling mathe- 
matical master that certain methods — not his, thank 
God — usually produce certain results. Out of deli- 
cacy the Old Boys did not attend that call-over; and it 
was to the school drawn up in the gymnasium that the 
Head spoke icily. 

“ It is not often that I do not understand you; but 
I confess I do not to-night. Some of you, after your 
idiotic performances at prep., seem to think me a fit 
person to cheer. I am going to show you that I am 
not.” 

Crash — crash — crash — came the triple cheer that 
disproved it, and the Head glowered under the 
gas. 

“ That is enough. You will gain nothing. The 
little boys (the Lower School did not like that form of 
address) will do me three hundred lines apiece in the 
holidays. I shall take no further notice of them. The 
Upper School will do me one thousand lines apiece in 
the holidays, to be shown up the evening of the day 
they come back. And further ” 

a Gummy, what a glutton! ” Stalky whispered. 

[ 210 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


“For your behavior towards Mr. Mason I intend 
to lick the whole of the Upper School to-morrow when 
I give you your journey-money. This will include 
the three study-boys I found dancing on the form- 
room desks when I came up. Prefects will stay after 
call-over. ” 

The school filed out in silence, but gathered in 
groups by the gymnasium door waiting what might 
befall. 

“ And now, Flint,” said the Head, “ will you be 
good enough to give me some explanation of your 
conduct? ” 

“ Well, sir,” said Flint desperately, “ if you save 
a chap’s life at the risk of your own when he’s dyin’ 
of diphtheria, and the Coll, finds it out, wha-what can 
you expect, sir? ” 

“ Um, I see. Then that noise was not meant for — 
ah, cheek. I can connive at immorality, but I cannot 
stand impudence. However, it does not excuse their 
insolence to Mr. Mason. I’ll forego the lines this 
once, remember; but the lickings hold good.” 

When this news was made public, the school, lost in 
wonder and admiration, gasped at the Head as he went 
to his house. Here was a man to be reverenced. On 
the rare occasions when he caned he did it very 
scientifically, and the execution of a hundred boys 
would be epic — immense. 

“ It’s all right, Head Sahib. We know,” said Cran- 

[ 211 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


dall, as the Head slipped off his gown with a grunt in 
his smoking-room. “ I found out just now from our 
substitute. He was gettin’ my opinion of your per- 
formance last night in the dormitory. I didn’t know 
then that it was you he was talkin’ about. Crafty 
young animal. Freckled chap with eyes — Corkran, I 
think his name is.” 

“ Oh, I know him , thank you,” said the Head, and 
reflectively. “ Ye-es, I should have included them 
' even if I hadn’t seen ’em.” 

“ If the old Coll, weren’t a little above themselves 
already, we’d chair you down the corridor,” said the 
Engineer. “ Oh, Bates, how could you? You might 
have caught it yourself, and where would we have 
been, then? ” 

“ I always knew you were worth twenty of us any 
day. How I’m sure of it,” said the Squadron Com- 
mander, looking round for contradictions. 

“ He isn’t fit to manage a school, though. Promise 
you’ll never do it again, Bates Sahib. We — we can’t 
go away comfy in our minds if you take these risks,” 
said the Gunner. 

“ Bates Sahib, you aren’t ever goin’ to cane the 
whole Upper School, are you? ” said Crandall. 

“ I can connive at immorality, as I said, but I can’t 
stand impudence. Mason’s lot is quite hard enough 
even when I back him. Besides, the men at the golf- 
club heard them singing ‘ Aaron and Moses.’ I shall 
[ 212 ] 


A LITTLE PREP. 


have complaints about that from the parents of day- 
boys. Decency must be preserved/ 7 

“ We’re coming to help/’ said all the guests. 

The Upper School were caned one after the other, 
their overcoats over their arms, the brakes waiting in 
the road below to take them to the station, their jour- 
ney-money on the table. The Head began with Stalky, 
McTurk, and Beetle. He dealt faithfully by them. 

“ And here’s your journey-money. Good-by, and 
pleasant holidays.” 

“ Good-by. Thank you, sir. Good-by.” 

They shook hands. 

“ Desire don’t outrun performance — much — this 
* mornin’. We got the cream of it,” said Stalky. “ How 
wait till a few chaps come out, and we’ll really cheer 
him.” 

“ Don’t wait on our account, please,” said Crandall, 
speaking for the Old Boys. “We’re going to begin 
now.” 

It was very well so long as the cheering was con- 
fined to the corridor, but when it spread to the gymna- 
sium, when the boys awaiting their turn cheered, the 
Head gave it up in despair, and the remnant flung 
themselves upon him to shake hands. 

Then they seriously devoted themselves to cheering 
till the brakes were hustled off the premises in dumb- 
ahow. 


[ 213 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Didn’t I say I’d get even with him? ” said Stalky 
on the box-seat, as they swung into the narrow 
ISTortham street. “ Kow all together — takin’ time 
from your Uncle Stalky: 

“ It's a way we have in the Army, 

It’s a way we have in the Navy, 

It’s a way we have at the Public Schools, 

Which nobody can deny ! ” 


[ 214 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


It was winter and bitter cold of mornings. Con- 
sequently Stalky and Beetle — McTurk being of the 
offensive type that makes ornate toilet under all cir- 
cumstances — drowsed till the last moment before 
turning out to call-over in the gas-lit gymnasium. 
It followed that they were often late; and since 
every unpunctuality earned them a black mark, and 
since three black marks a week meant defaulters’ 
drill, equally it followed that they spent hours un- 
der the Sergeant’s hand. Foxy drilled the default- 
ers with all the pomp of his old parade-ground. 

C£ Don’t think it’s any pleasure to me ” (his intro- 
duction never varied). “ I’d much sooner be smok- 
ing a quiet pipe in my own quarters — but I see we 
’ave the Old Brigade on our ’ands this afternoon. 
If I only ’ad you regular, Muster Corkran,” said 
he, dressing the line. 

“ You’ve had me for nearly six weeks, you old 
glutton. Number off from the right! ” 

“ Not quite so previous, please. I’m taking this 
15 [ 215 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


drill. Left, half — turn ! Slow — march.” Twenty- 
five sluggards, all old offenders, filed into the gym- 
nasium. “ Quietly provide yourselves with the req- 
uisite dumb-bells; returnin’ quietly to your place. 
Number off from the right, in a low voice. Odd 
numbers one pace to the front. Even numbers 
stand fast. Now, leanin’ forward from the ’ips, 
takin’ your time from me.” 

The dumb-bells rose and fell, clashed and were re- 
turned as one. The boys were experts at the weary 
game. 

“ Ye-ry good. I shall be sorry when any of you 
resume your ’abits of punctuality. Quietly re- 
turn dumb-bells. Ye will now try some simple 
drill.” 

“ Ugh! I know that simple drill.” 

“ It would be ’ighly to your discredit if you did 
not, Muster Corkran. At the same time, it is not 
so easy as it looks. ’ ’ 

“ Bet you a bob, I can drill as well as you, 
Foxy.” 

“ We’ll see later. Now try to imagine you ain’t 
defaulters at all, but an ’arf company on parade, me 
bein’ your commandin’ officer. There’s no call to 
laugh. If you’re lucky, most of you will ’ave 
to take drills ’arf your life. Do me a little 
credit. You’ve been at it long enough, goodness 
knows ” 


[ 216 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY, 


They were formed into fours, marched, wheeled, 
and countermarched, the spell of ordered motion 
strong on them. As Foxy said, they had been at it 
a long time. 

The gymnasium door opened, revealing McTurk 
in charge of an old gentleman. 

The Sergeant, leading a wheel, did not see. 
“Not so bad,” he murmured. “Not ’arf so bad. 
The pivot-man of the wheel honly marks time, Mus- 
ter Swayne. Now, Muster Corkran, you say you 
know the drill ? Oblige me by takin’ over the com- 
mand and, reversin’ my words step by step, relegate 
them to their previous formation. ’ ’ 

“What’s this? What’s this?” cried the visitor 
authoritatively. 

“A — a little drill, sir,” stammered Foxy, saying 
nothing of first causes. 

“Excellent — excellent. I only wish there were 
more of it,” he chirruped. “Don’t let me inter- 
rupt. You were just going to hand over to some 
one, weren’t you?” He sat down, breathing 
frostily in the chill air. 

“I shall muck it. I know I shall,” whispered 
Stalky uneasily; and his discomfort was not light- 
ened by a murmur from the rear rank that the old 
gentleman was General Collinson, a member of the 
College Board of Council. 

“ Eh — what ? ” said Foxy. 

[ 217 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Collinson, K.C.B. — He commanded the Pompa- 
dours — my father’s old regiment,” hissed Swayne 
major. 

“ Take your time,” said the visitor. “ I know 
how it feels. Your first drill — eh ? ” 

“Yes, sir.” He drew an unhappy breath. 
“ ’Tention. Dress!” The echo of his own voice 
restored his confidence. 

The wheel was faced about, flung back, broken 
into fours, and restored to line without a falter. 
The official hour of punishment was long passed, 
but no one thought of that. They were backing up 
Stalky — Stalky in deadly fear lest his voice should 
crack. 

“ He does you credit, Sergeant,” was the visitor’s 
comment. “A good drill — and good material to 
drill. ISTow, it’s an extraordinary thing: I’ve been 
lunching with your head-master and he never told 
me you had a cadet-corps in the College.” 

“We ’aven’t, sir. This is only a little drill,” said 
the Sergeant. 

“But aren’t they keen on it?” said McTurk, 
speaking for the first time, with a twinkle in his 
deep-set eyes. 

“ Why aren’t you in it, though, Willy? ” 

“Oh, I’m not punctual enough,” said McTurk. 
“ The Sergeant only takes the pick of us.” 

“Dismiss! Break off!” cried Foxy, fearing an 

[ 218 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


explosion in the ranks. “I — I ought to have told 
yon, sir, that ” 

“ But you should have a cadet-corps.” The Gen- 
eral pursued his own line of thought. “ You shall 
have a cadet-corps, too, if my recommendation in 
Council is any use. I don’t know when I’ve been 
so pleased. Boys animated by a spirit like yours 
should set an example to the whole school.” 

“ They do,” said McTurk. 

“ Bless my soul ! Can it be so late? I’ve kept 
my fly waiting half an hour. Well, I must run 
away. Nothing like seeing things for one’s self. 
Which end of the buildings does one get out at? 
Will you show me, Willy ? Who was that boy who 
took the drill? ” 

“ Corkran, I think his name is.” 

“You ought to know him. That’s the kind of 
boy you should cultivate. Evidently an unusual 
sort. A wonderful sight. Five and twenty boys, 
who, I dare say, would much sooner be playing 
cricket — ” (it was the depth of winter; but ^rown 
people, especially those who have lived long in for- 
eign parts, make these little errors, and McTurk did 
not correct him) — “ drilling for the sheer love of it. 
A shame to waste so much good stuff ; but I think I 
can carry my point.” 

“An’ who’s your friend with the white whiskers ? ” 
demanded Stalky, on McTurk’s return to the study. 

[ 219 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ General Collinson. He comes over to shoot 
with my father sometimes. Rather a decent old 
bargee, too. He said I ought to cultivate your ac- 
quaintance, Stalky.” 

“ Did he tip you? ” 

McTurk exhibited a blessed whole sovereign. 

“ Ah,” said Stalky, annexing it, for he was treas- 
urer. “-'We’ll have a hefty brew. You’d pretty 
average cool cheek, Turkey, to jaw about our keen- 
ness an’ punctuality.” 

“ Didn’t the old boy know we were defaulters? ” 
said Beetle. 

“ Hot him. He came down to lunch with the 
Head. I found him pokin’ about the place on his 
own hook afterwards, an’- 1 thought I’d show him 
the giddy drill. When I found he was so pleased, 
I wasn’t goin’ to damp his giddy ardor. He 
mightn’t ha’ given me the quid if I had.” 

“ Wasn’t old Foxy pleased ? Did you see him get 
pink behind the ears?” said Beetle. “It was an 
awft&ExSCore for him. Didn’t we back him up beau- 
tifully ? Let’s go down to Kbyte’s and get some 
cocoa and sassingers.” 

They overtook Foxy, speeding down to retail the 
adventure to Kbyte, who in his time had been Troop 
Sergeant-Major in a cavalry regiment, and now, a 
war-worn veteran, was local postmaster and con- 
fectioner. 


[ 220 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


“You owe us something, 5 ’ said Stalky, with 
meaning. 

“I’m ’ighly grateful, Muster Corkran. I’ve ’ad 
to run against you pretty hard in the way o’ busi- 
ness, now and then, but I will say that outside o’ 
business — bounds an’ smokin’, an’ such like — I don’t 
wish to have a more trustworthy young gentleman 
to ’elp me out of a hole. The way you ’andled the 
drill was beautiful, though I say it. How, if you 
come regular henceforward ” 

“ But he’ll have to be late three times a week,” 
said Beetle. “You can’t expect a chap to do that 
— just to please you, Foxy.” 

“ Ah, that’s true. Still, if you could manage it 
— and you, Muster Beetle — it would give you a big 
start when the cadet-corps is formed. I expect the 
General will recommend it.” 

They raided Keyte’s very much at their own 
sweet will, for the old man, who knew them well, 
was deep in talk with Foxy. 

“ I make what we’ve taken seven and six,” Stalky 
called at last over the counter; “but you’d better 
count for yourself.” 

“Ho — no. I’d take your word any day, Muster 
Corkran. — In the Pompadours, was he, Sergeant? 
We lay with them once — at Umballa, I think it was. ” 

“I don’t know whether this ham-and-tongue tin 
is eighteen pence or one an’ four.” 

[ 221 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Say one an’ fourpence, Muster Corkran. . . . 

Of course, Sergeant, if it was any use to give my 
time, I’d be pleased to do it, but I’m too old. I’d 
like to see a drill again.” 

“Oh, come on, Stalky,” cried McTurk. “He 
isn’t listenin’ to you. Chuck over the money.” 

“ I want the quid changed, you ass. Keyte! Pri- 
vate Keyte! Corporal Keyte! Terroop- Sergeant- 
Major Keyte, will you give me change for a quid? ” 

“Yes — yes, of course. Seven an’ six.” He 
stared abstractedly, pushed the silver over, and 
melted away into the darkness of the back room. 

“ How those two’ll jaw about the Mutiny till tea- 
time,” said Beetle. 

“Old Keyte was at Sobraon,” said Stalky. 
“ Hear him talk about that sometimes! Beats 
Poxy hollow.” 

The Head’s face, inscrutable as ever, was bent 
over a pile of letters. 

“What do you think?” he said at last to the 
Eeverend John Gillett. 

“ It’s a good idea. There’s no denying that — an 
estimable idea.” 

“We concede that much. Well ? ” 

“I have my doubts about it — that’s all. The 
more I know of boys the less do I profess myself 
capable of following their moods ; but I own I shall 
[222 ] 


the flag of their country. 


be very much surprised if the scheme takes. It — it 
isn’t the temper of the school. We prepare for the 
Army.” 

cc My business — in this matter — is to carry out the 
wishes of the Council. They demand a volunteer 
cadet-corps. A volunteer cadet-corps will be fur- 
nished. I have suggested, however, that we need 
not embark upon the expense of uniforms till we 
are drilled. General Collinson is sending us fifty 
lethal weapons — cut-down Sniders, he calls them — 
all carefully plugged.” 

“Yes, that is necessary in a school that uses 
loaded saloon-pistols to the extent we do. ’ ’ The 
Reverend John smiled. 

“ Therefore there will be no outlay except the 
Sergeant’s time.” 

“ But if he fails you will be blamed.” 

“ Oh, assuredly. I shall post a notice in the cor- 
ridor this afternoon, and ” 

“ I shall watch the result.” 


“Kindly keep your ’ands off the new arm-rack.” 

Foxy wrestled with a turbulent crowd in the gyrm 
nasium. “Nor it won’t do even a condemned 
Snider any good to be continual snappin’ the lock, 
Mr. S wayne. — Yiss, the uniforms will come later, 
when we’re more proficient; at present' we will con- 
fine ourselves to drill. I am ’ere for the purpose of 
[ 223 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


takin’ the names o’ those willin’ to join. — Put down 
that Snider, Muster Hogan! ” 

“What are you goin’ to do, Beetle?” said a 
voice. 

“ I’ve had all the drill I want, thank you.” 

“What! After all you’ve learned? Come on. 
Don’t be a scab ! They’ll make you corporal in a 
week,” cried Stalky. 

“I’m not goin’ up for the Army.” Beetle 
touched his spectacles. 

“ Hold on a shake, Foxy,” said Hogan. “ Where 
are you goin’ to drill us ? ” 

“ Here — in the gym — till you are fit an’ capable 
to be taken out on the road.” The Sergeant threw 
a chest. 

“ For all the Hortham cads to look at ? Hot good 
enough, Foxibus.” 

“ Well, we won’t make a point of it. You learn 
your drill first, an’ later we’ll see.” 

“Hullo,” said Ansell of Macrea’s, shouldering 
through the mob. “What’s all this about a giddy 
cadet-corps? ” 

“ It will save you a lot o’ time at Sandhurst,” 
the Sergeant replied promptly. “You’ll be dis- 
missed your drills early if you go up with a good 
groundin’ before’and.” 

“Hm! ’Don’t mind learnin’ my drill, but I’m 
not goin’ to ass about the country with a toy 
[ 224 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


Snider. Perowne, what are you goin’ to do? 
Hogan’s joinin’.” 

“ Don’t know whether I’ve the time,” said 
Perowne. “ I’ve got no end of extra-tu as it is.” 

“Well, call this extra-tu,” said Ansell. “ ’T won’t 
take us long to mug up the drill.” 

“ Oh, that’s right enough, but what about march- 
in’ in public?” said Hogan, not foreseeing that 
three years later he should die in the Burmese sun- 
light outside Minhla Fort. 

“Afraid the uniform won’t suit your creamy 
complexion?” McTurk asked with a villainous 
sneer. 

“ Shut up, Turkey. You aren’t goin’ up for the 
Army.” 

“No, but I’m goin’ to send a substitute. Hi! 
Morrell an’ Wake! You two fags by the arm -rack, 
you’ve got to volunteer.” 

Blushing deeply — they had been too shy to apply 
before — the youngsters sidled towards the Sergeant. 

“ But I don’t want the little chaps — not at first,” 
said the Sergeant disgustedly. “ I want — I’d like 
some of the Old Brigade — the defaulters — to stiffen 
’em a bit.” 

“ Don’t be ungrateful, Sergeant. They’re nearly 
as big as you get ’em in the Army now.” McTurk 
read the papers of those years and could be trusted 
for general information, which he used as he used 
[ 225 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


his “ tweaker.” Yet he did not know that Wake 
minor would be a bimbashi of the Egyptian Army 
ere his thirtieth year. 

Hogan, Swayne, Stalky, Perowne, and Ansell 
were deep in consultation by the vaulting-horse, 
Stalky as usual laying down the law. The Sergeant 
watched them uneasily, knowing that many waited 
on their lead. 

“ Foxy don’t like my recruits,” said McTurk, in 
a pained tone, to Beetle. “ You get him some.” 

Nothing loath, Beetle pinioned two more fags — 
each no taller than a carbine. 

“ Here you are, Foxy. Here’s food for powder. 
Strike for your hearths an’ homes, you young brutes 
— an’ be jolly quick about it.” 

“ Still he isn’t happy,” said McTurk. 

“ For the way we have with our Army 
Is the way we have with our Navy.” 

Here Beetle joined in. They had found the poem 
in an old volume of “ Punch,” and it seemed to 
cover the situation : 

“ An’ both of ’em led to adversity, 

Which nobody can deny 1 ” 

“You be quiet, young gentlemen. If you can’t 
’elp— don’t ’inder.” Foxy’s eye was still on the 
council by the horse. Carter, White, and Tyrrell, 
[ 226 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


all boys of influence, had joined it. The rest fin- 
gered the rifles irresolutely. 

u Half a shake,” cried Stalky. “ Can’t we turn 
out those rotters before we get to work? ” 

“ Certainly,” said Foxy. “Any one wishful to 
join will stay ’ere. Those who do not so intend will 
go out, quietly closin’ the door be’ind ’em.” 

Half a dozen of the earnest-minded rushed at 
them, and they had just time to escape into the cor- 
ridor. 

“Well, why don’t you join?” Beetle asked, re- 
settling his collar. 

“ Why didn’t you ? ” 

“What’s the good? We aren’t goin’ up for the 
Army. Besides, I know the drill — all except the 
manual, of course. ’Wonder what they’re doin’ in- 
side? ” 

“ Makin’ a treaty with Foxy. Didn’t you hear 
Stalky say: ‘ That’s what we’ll do — an’ if he don’t 
like it he can lump it ’ ? They’ll use Foxy for a 
cram. Can’t you see, you idiot ? They’re goin’ up 
for Sandhurst or the Shop in less than a year. 
They’ll learn their drill an’ then they’ll drop it like 
a shot. D’you suppose chaps with their amount of 
extra-tu are takin’ up volunteerin’ for fun? ” 

“ Well, I don’t know. I thought of doin’ a poem 
about it — rottin’ ’em, you know — £ The Ballad of 
the Dogshooters ’ — eh ? ” 

[ 227 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ I don’t think yon can, because King’ll be down 
on the corps like a cartload o’ bricks. He hasn’t 
been consulted. He’s sniffin’ round the notice-board 
now. Let’s lure him.” They strolled up carelessly 
towards the house-master — a most meek couple. 

“ How’s this? ” said King with a start of feigned 
surprise. “ Me thought you would be learning to 
fight for your country.” 

“I think the company’s full, sir,” said McTurk. 

“ It’s a great pity,” sighed Beetle. 

“ Forty valiant defenders, have we, then? How 
noble ! What devotion ! I presume that it is pos- 
sible that a desire to evade their normal responsi- 
bilities may be at the bottom of this zeal. Doubt- 
less they will be accorded special privileges, like the 
Choir and the Natural History Society — one must 
not say Bug-hunters.” 

“ Oh, I suppose so, sir,” said McTurk, cheerily. 
“ The Head hasn’t said anything about it yet, but 
he will, of course.” 

“ Oh, sure to.” 

“It is just possible, my Beetle,” King wheeled 
on the last speaker, “ that the house-masters — a 
necessary but somewhat neglected factor in our 
humble scheme of existence — may have a word to 
say on the matter. Life, for the young at least, is 
not all weapons and munitions of war. Education 
is incidentally one of our aims.” 

[ 228 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


“What a consistent pig he is,” cooed McTurk, 
when they were out of earshot. “ One always 
knows where to have him. Did yon see how he 
rose to that draw about the Head and special privi- 
leges? ” 

“ Confound him, he might have had the decency 
to have backed the scheme. I could do such a 
lovely ballad, rottin’ it; and now I’ll have to be a 
giddy enthusiast. It don’t bar our pulling Stalky’s 
leg in the stud} 7 ", does it? ” 

“ Oh, no; but in the Coll, we must be pro-cadet- 
corps like anything. Can’t you make up a giddy 
epigram, a la Catullus, about King objectin’ to it ? ” 
Beetle was at this noble task when Stalky returned 
all hot from his first drill. 

“Hullo, my ramrod-bunger ! ” began McTurk. 
“Where’s your dead dog? Is it Defence or De- 
fiance? ” 

“Defiance,” said Stalky, and leaped on him at 
that word. “ Look here, Turkey, you mustn’t rot 
the corps. We’ve arranged it beautifully. Foxy 
swears he won’t take us out into the open till we say 
we want to go.” 

“ Z^-gustin’ exhibition of immature infants apin’ 
the idiosyncrasies of their elders. Snff ! ” 

“Have you drawn King, Beetle?” Stalky asked 
in a pause of the scuffle. 

“ Not exactly; but that’s his genial style.” 

[ 229 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“Well, listen to your Uncle Stalky — who is a 
great man. Moreover and subsequently, Foxy’s 
goin’ to let us drill the corps in turn — -privatim et 
seriatim — so that we’ll all know how to handle a 
half company anyhow. Ergo , an’ propter hoc, when 
we go to the Shop we shall be dismissed drill early ; 
thus, my beloved ’earers, combinin’ education with 
wholesome amusement. ’ ’ 

“ I knew you’d make a sort of extra- tu of it, you 
cold-blooded brute,” said McTurk. “Don’t you 
want to die for your giddy country? ” 

“ Hot if I can jolly well avoid it. So you mustn’t 
rot the corps.” 

“We’d decided on that, years ago,” said Beetle, 
scornfully. “ King’ll do the rottin’.” 

“ Then you’ve got to rot King, my giddy poet. 
Make up a good catchy Limerick, and let the fags 
sing it.” 

“ Look here, you stick to volunteerin’, and don’t 
jog the table.” 

“ He won’t have anything to take hold of,” said 
Stalky, with dark significance. 

They did not know what that meant till, a few 
days later, they proposed to watch the corps at drill. 
They found the gymnasium door locked and a fag 
on guard. 

“This is sweet cheek,” said McTurk, stoop- 
ing. 


[ 230 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


“ Mustn’t look through the key -hole,” said the 
sentry. 

“ I like that. Why, Wake, you little beast, I 
made you a volunteer.” 

“ Can’t help it. My orders are not to allow any 
one to look.” 

“ S’pose we do?” said McTurk. “S’pose we 
jolly well slay you ? ” 

“My orders are, I am to give the name of any- 
body who interfered with me on my post, to the 
corps, an’ they’d deal with him after drill, accordin’ 
to martial law.” 

“What a brute Stalky is!” said Beetle. They 
never doubted for a moment who had devised that 
scheme. 

“ You esteem yourself a giddy centurion, don’t 
you? ” said Beetle, listening to the crash and rattle 
of grounded arms within. 

“ My orders are, not to talk except to explain my 
orders — they’ll lick me if I do.” 

McTurk looked at Beetle. The two shook their 
heads and turned away. 

“I swear Stalky is a great man,” said Beetle 
after a long pause. “ One consolation is that this 
sort of secret-society biznai will drive King wild.” 

It troubled many more than King, but the mem- 
bers of the corps were muter than oysters. Foxy, 
being bound by no vow, carried his woes to Keyte. 

1G [ 231 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“I never come across such nonsense in my life. 
They’ve tiled the lodge, inner and outer guard all 
complete, and then they get to work, keen as mus- 
tard.” 

“But what’s it all for?” asked the ex-Troop 
Sergeant-Major. 

“ To learn their drill. You never saw anything 
like it. They begin after I’ve dismissed ’em — prac- 
tisin’ tricks; hut out into the open they will not 
come — not for ever so. The ’ole thing is pre-poster- 
ous. If you’re a cadet-corps, I say, he a cadet- 
corps, instead o’ hidin’ be’ind locked doors.” 

“ And what do the authorities say about it? ” 

“That beats me again.” The Sergeant spoke 
fretfully. “I go to the ’Ead an’ ’e gives me no 
help. There’s times when I think he’s makin’ fun 
o’ me. I’ve never been a Yolunteer-sergeant, thank 
God — but I’ve always had the consideration to pity 
’em. I’m glad o’ that.” 

“ I’d like to see ’em,” said Keyte. “ From your 
statements, Sergeant, I can’t get at what they’re 
after.” 

“ Don’t ask me, Major ! Ask that freckle-faced 
young Corkran. He’s their generalissimo.” 

One does not refuse a warrior of Sobraon, or deny 
the only pastry-cook within bounds. So Keyte 
came, by invitation, leaning upon a stick, tremulous 
with old age, to sit in a corner and watch. 

[ 232 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


“They shape well. They shape uncommon 
well,” he whispered between evolutions. 

“ Oh, this isn’t what they’re after. "Wait till I 
dismiss ’em.” 

At the “break-off” the ranks stood fast. Pe- 
rowne fell out, faced them, and, refreshing his mem- 
ory by glimpses at a red-bound, metal-clasped book, 
drilled them for ten minutes. (This is that Perowne 
who was shot in Equatorial Africa by his own 
men.) 

Ansell followed him, and Hogan followed Ansell. 
All three were implicitly obeyed. 

Then Stalky laid aside his Snider, and, drawing a 
long breath, favored the company with a blast of 
withering invective. 

“ ’Old ’ard, Muster Corkran. That ain’t in any 
drill,” cried Foxy. 

“All right, Sergeant. You never know what 
you may have to say to your men. — For pity’s 
sake, try to stand up without leanin’ against each 
other, you blear-eyed, herrin’ -gutted gutter-snipes. 
It’s no pleasure to me to comb you out. That ought 
to have been done before you came here, you — you 
militia broom-stealers.” 

“The old touch — the old touch. We know it,” 
said Keyte, wiping his rheumy eyes. “ But where 
did he pick it up ? ” 

“ From his father — or his uncle. Don’t ask me ! 

[ 233 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Half of ’em must have been born within earshot o’ 
the barracks.” (Foxy was not far wrong in his 
guess.) “ I’ve heard more back-talk since this vol- 
unteerin’ nonsense began than I’ve heard in a year 
in the service.” 

“ There’s a rear-rank man lookin’ as though his 
belly were in the pawn-shop. Yes, you, Private 
Ansell,” and Stalky tongue-lashed the victim for 
three minutes, in gross and in detail. 

“ IIullo! ” He returned to his normal tone. 
“ First blood to me. You flushed, Ansell. You 
wriggled.” 

“ Couldn’t help flushing,” was the answer. 
“ Don’t think I wriggled, though.” 

“ Well, it’s your turn now.” Stalky resumed his 
place in the ranks. 

“ Lord, Lord! It’s as good as a play,” chuckled 
the attentive Keyte. 

Ansell, too, had been blessed with relatives in the 
service, and slowly, in a lazy drawl — his style was 
more reflective than Stalky’s — descended the abys- 
mal depths of personality. 

“ Blood to me!” he shouted triumphantly. 
“ You couldn’t stand it, either.” Stalky was a rich 
red, and his Snider shook visibly. 

“ I didn’t think I would,” he said, struggling for 
composure, 14 but after a bit I got in no end of a 
bait. Curious, ain’t it ? ” 

[ 234 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


“ Good for the temper,” said the slow-moving 
Hogan, as they returned arms to the rack. 

‘‘Did } 7 ou ever?” said Foxy, hopelessly, to 
Keyte. 

“I don’t know much about volunteers, but it’s 
the rummiest show I ever saw. I can see what 
they’re gettin’ at, though. Lord! how often I’ve 
been told off an’ dressed down in my day ! They 
shape well — extremely well they shape. ’ ’ 

“If I could get ’em out into the open, there’s 
nothing I couldn’t do with ’em, Major. Perhaps 
when the uniforms come down, they’ll change their 
mind.” 

Indeed it was time that the corps made some con- 
cession to the curiosity of the school. Thrice had 
the guard been maltreated and thrice had the corps 
dealt out martial law to the offender. The school 
raged. What was the use, they asked, of a cadet- 
corps which none might see ? Mr. King congratu- 
lated them on their invisible defenders, and they 
could not parry his thrusts. Foxy was growing 
sullen and restive. A few of the corps expressed 
openly doubts as to the wisdom of their course; and 
the question of uniforms loomed on the near horizon. 
If these were issued, they would be forced to wear 
them. 

But, as so often happens in this life, the matter 
was suddenly settled from without. 

[ 235 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


The Head had duly informed the Council that 
their recommendation had been acted upon, and 
that, so far as he could learn, the boys were drilling. 

He said nothing of the terms on which they 
drilled. Naturally, General Collinson was delighted 
and told his friends. One of his friends rejoiced in 
a friend, a Member of Parliament — a zealous, an in- 
telligent, and, above all, a patriotic person, anxious 
to do the most good in the shortest possible time. 
Eut we cannot answer, alas ! for the friends of our 
friends. If Collinson’s friend had introduced him 
to the General, the latter would have taken his 
measure and saved much. Eut the friend merely 
spoke of his friend ; and since no two people in the 
world see eye to eye, the picture conveyed to Collin- 
son was inaccurate. Moreover, the man was an 
M.P., an impeccable Conservative, and the General 
had the English soldier’s lurking respect for any 
member of the Court of Last Appeal. He was go- 
ing down into the West country, to spread light in 
somebody’s benighted constituency. Wouldn’t it 
be a good idea if, armed with the General’s recom- 
mendation, he, taking the admirable and newly es- 
tablished cadet-corps for his text, spoke a few words 
— “ Just talked to the boys a little — eh? You know 
the kind of thing that would be acceptable; and 
he’d be the very man to do it. The sort of talk 
that boys understand, you know.” 

[ 236 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


“ They didn’t talk to ’em much in my time/’ said 
the General, suspiciously. 

cc Ah! hut times change — with the spread of edu- 
cation and so on. The boys of to-day are the men 
of to-morrow. An impression in youth is likely to 
be permanent. And in these times, you know, with 
the country going to the dogs ? ” 

“ You’re quite right.” The island was then en- 
tering on five years of Mr. Gladstone’s rule; and 
the General did not like what he had seen of it. He 
would certainly write to the Head, for it was be- 
yond question that the boys of to-day made the men 
of to-morrow. That, if he might say so, was un- 
commonly well put. 

In reply, the Head stated that he should be de- 
lighted to welcome Mr. Raymond Martin, M.P., of 
whom he had heard so much ; to put him up for the 
night, and to allow him to address the school on 
any subject that he conceived would interest them. 
If Mr. Martin had not yet faced an audience of this 
particular class of British youth, the Head had no 
doubt that he would find it an interesting expe- 
rience. 

“ And I don’t think I am very far wrong in that 
last,” he confided to the Reverend John. “ Do you 
happen to know anything of one Raymond Mar- 
tin ? ” 

“ I was at College with a man of that name,” the 
[ 237 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


chaplain replied. “ He was without form and void, 
so far as I remember, but desperately earnest.” 

“ He will address the Coll, on ‘ Patriotism ’ next 
Saturday.” 

“ If there is one thing our boys detest more than 
another it is having their Saturday evenings broken 
into. Patriotism has no chance beside ‘ brewing.’ ” 

“Nor art either. D’you remember our ‘Even- 
ing with Shakespeare’?” The Head’s eyes 
twinkled. “ Or the humorous gentleman with the 
magic lantern ? ” 

“An’ who the dooce is this Raymond. Martin, 
M.P.? ” demanded Beetle, when he read the notice 
of the lecture in the corridor. “ Why do the brutes 
always turn up on a Saturday? ” 

“Ouh! Reomeo, Reomeo. Wherefore art thou 
Reomeo? ” said McTurk over his shoulder, quoting 
the Shakespeare artiste of last term. “Well, he 
won’t be as bad as her, I hope. Stalky, are you 
properly patriotic? Because if you ain’t, this chap’s 
goin’ to make you.” 

“ Hope he won’t take up the whole of the even- 
ing. I suppose we’ve got to listen to him.” 

“Wouldn’t miss him for the world,” said Mc- 
Turk. “ A lot of chaps thought that Romeo-Romeo 
woman was a bore, /didn’t. I liked her! ’Mem- 
ber when she began to hiccough in the middle of it ? 

[ 238 ] 


-THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


P’raps he’ll hiccough. Whoever gets into the Gym 
first, bags seats for the other two.” 

There was no nervousness, but a brisk and cheery 
affability about Mr. Raymond Martin, M.P., as he 
drove up, watched by many eyes, to the Head’s 
house. 

“ Looks a bit of a bargee,” was McTurk’s com- 
ment. “ Shouldn’t be surprised if he was a Radical. 
He rowed the driver about the fare. I heard him. ” 

‘ ‘ That was his giddy patriotism,” Beetle ex- 
plained. 

After tea they joined the rush for seats, secured a 
private and invisible corner, and began to criticise. 
Every gas-jet was lit. On the little dais at the far 
end stood the Head’s official desk, whence Mr. Mar- 
tin would discourse, and a ring of chairs for the 
masters. 

Entered then Foxy, with official port, and leaned 
something like a cloth rolled round a stick against 
the desk. No one in authority was yet present, so 
the school applauded, crying: “ What’s that, Foxy ? 
What are you stealin’ the gentleman’s brolly for? — 
We don’t birch here. We cane! Take away that 
bauble! — Number off from the right” — and so 
forth, till the entry of the Head and the masters 
ended all demonstrations. 

“ One good job — the Common-room hate this as 
[ 239 ] 


STALKY & 00. 

much as we do. Watch King wrigglin’ to get out 
of the draft.” 

“ Where’s the Baymondiferous Martin? Punc- 
tuality, my beloved ’earers, is the image o’ war ” 

“ Shut up. Here’s the giddy Dook. Golly, 
what a dewlap! ” Mr. Martin, in evening dress, 
was undeniably throat}' — a tall, generously de- 
signed, pink-and-white man. Still, Beetle need not 
have been coarse. 

“ Look at his back while he’s talkin’ to the Head. 
Yile bad form to turn your back on the audience! 
He’s a Philistine — a Bopper — a Jebusite — an’ a 
Hivite.” McTurk leaned back and sniffed con- 
temptuously. 

In a few colorless words, the Head introduced the 
speaker and sat down amid applause. When Mr. 
Martin took the applause to himself, they naturally 
applauded more than ever. It was some time be- 
fore he could begin. He had no knowledge of the 
.school — its tradition or heritage. He did not know 
that the last census showed that eighty per cent, of 
the boys had been born abroad — in camp, canton- 
ment, or upon the high seas; or that seventy-five 
per cent, were sons of officers in one or other of 
the services — Willoughbys, Paulets, De Castros, 
Maynes, Bandalls, after their kind — looking to fol- 
low their fathers’ profession. The Head might 
have told him this, and much more; but, after an 
[240] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


hour-long dinner in his company, the Head decided 
to say nothing whatever. Mr. Raymond Martin 
seemed to know so much already. 

He plunged into his speech with a long-drawn, 
rasping “ Well, boys,” that, though they were not 
conscious of it, set every young nerve ajar. He 
supposed they knew — hey? — what he had come 
down for ? It was not often that he had an oppor- 
tunity to talk to boys. He supposed that boys were 
very much the same kind of persons — some people 
thought them rather funny persons — as they had 
been in his youth. 

“ This man,” said McTurk, with conviction, “is 
the Gadarene Swine.” 

But they must remember that they would not 
always be boys. They would grow up into men, 
because the boys of to-day made the men of to- 
morrow, and upon the men of to-morrow the fair 
fame of their glorious native land depended. 

“If this goes on, my beloved ’earers, it will be 
my painful duty to rot this bargee.” Stalky drew 
a long breath through his nose. 

“Can’t do that,” said McTurk. “He ain’t 
chargin’ anything for his Romeo.” 

And so they ought to think of the duties and re- 
sponsibilities of the life that was opening before 
them. Life was not all — he enumerated a few 
games, and, that nothing might be lacking to the 
[ 241 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


sweep and impact of his fall, added “ marbles.” 
“ Yes, life was not,” he said, “all marbles.” 

There was one tense gasp — among the juniors 
almost a shriek — of quivering horror. He was a 
heathen — an outcast — beyond the extremest pale of 
toleration — self-damned before all men. Stalky 
bowed his head in his hands. McTurk, with a 
bright and cheerful eye, drank in every word, and 
Beetle nodded solemn approval. 

Some of them, doubtless, expected in a few years 
to have the honor of a commission from the Queen, 
and to wear a sword. How, he himself had had 
some experience of these duties, as a Major in a vol- 
unteer regiment, and he was glad to learn that they 
had established a volunteer corps in their midst. 
The establishment of such an establishment conduced 
to a proper and healthy spirit, which, if fostered, 
would be of great benefit to the land they loved and 
were so proud to belong to. Some of those now 
present expected, he had no doubt — some of them 
anxiously looked forward to leading their men 
against the bullets of England’s foes; to confronting 
the stricken field in all the pride of their youthful 
manhood. 

How the reserve of a boy is tenfold deeper than 
the reserve of a maid, she being made for one end 
only by blind Hature, but man for several. With a 
large and healthy hand, he tore down these veils, 
[ 242 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


and trampled them under the well-intentioned feet 
of eloquence. In a raucous voice, he cried aloud 
little matters, like the hope of Honor and the dream 
of Glory, that boys do not discuss even with their 
most intimate equals, cheerfully assuming that, till 
he spoke, they had never considered these possi- 
bilities. lie pointed them to shining goals, with 
fingers which smudged out all radiance on all hori- 
zons. He profaned the most secret places of their 
souls with outcries and gesticulations, lie bade 
them consider the deeds of their ancestors in such 
a fashion that they were flushed to their tingling 
ears. Some of them — the rending voice cut a frozen 
stillness — might have had relatives who perished in 
defence of their country. They thought, not a few 
of them, of an old sword in a passage, or above a 
breakfast-room table, seen and fingered by stealth 
since they could walk. lie adjured them to emu- 
late those illustrious examples; and they looked all 
ways in their extreme discomfort. 

' Their years forbade them even to shape their 
thoughts clearly to themselves. They felt savagely 
that they were being outraged by a fat man who 
considered marbles a game. 

And so he worked towards his peroration — which, 
by the way, he used later with overwhelming suc- 
cess at a meeting of electors — while they sat, flushed 
and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many, many 
[ 243 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


words, he reached for the cloth-wrapped stick and 
thrust one hand in his bosom. This — this was the 
concrete symbol of their land — worthy of all honor 
and reverence I Let no boy look on this flag who 
did not purpose to worthily add to its imperishable 
lustre. He shook it before them — a large calico 
Union Jack, staring in all three colors, and waited 
for the thunder of applause that should crown his 
effort. 

They looked in silence. They had certainly seen 
the thing before — down at the coastguard station, 
or through a telescope, half-mast high when a brig 
went ashore on Braun ton Sands ; above the roof of 
the Golf-club, and in Keyte’s window, where a cer- 
tain kind of striped sweetmeat bore it in paper on 
each box. But the College never displayed it; it 
was no part of the scheme of their lives ; the Head 
had never alluded to it; their fathers had not de- 
clared it unto them. It was a matter shut up, sacred 
and apart. What, in the name of everything cad- 
dish, was he driving at, who waved that horror be- 
fore their eyes ? Happy thought ! Perhaps he was 
drunk. 

The Head saved the situation by rising swiftly to 
propose a vote of thanks, and at his first motion, 
the school clapped furiously, from a sense of relief. 

“ And I am sure,” he concluded, the gaslight full 
on his face, “that you will all join me in a very 
[ 244 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Raymond Martin for 
the most enjoyable address he has given us.” 

To this day we shall never know the rights of the 
case. The Head vows that he did no such thing ; or 
that, if he did, it must have been something in his 
eye ; but those who were present are persuaded that 
he winked, once, openly and solemnly, after the 
word “ enjoyable.” Mr. Raymond Martin got his 
applause full tale. As he said, “Without vanity, 
I think my few words went to their hearts. I never 
knew boys could cheer like that.” 

He left as the prayer-bell rang, and the boys lined 
up against the wall. The flag lay still unrolled on 
the desk, Foxy regarding it with pride, for he had 
been touched to the quick by Mr. Martin’s elo- 
quence. The Head and the Common-room, stand- 
ing back on the dais, could not see the glaring 
offence, but a prefect left the line, rolled it up 
swiftly, and as swiftly tossed it into a glove and foil 
locker. 

Then, as though he had touched a spring, broke 
out the low murmur of content, changing to quick- 
volleyed hand-clapping. 

They discussed the speech in the dormitories. 
There was not one dissentient voice. Mr. Ray- 
mond Martin, beyond question, was born in a gut- 
ter, and bred in a board-school, where they played 
marbles. He was further (I give the barest hand- 
[ 245 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


ful from great store) a Flopshus Cad, an Outra- 
geous Stinker, a Jelly-bellied Flag* flapper (this was 
Stalky’s contribution), and several other things 
which it is not seemly to put down. 

The volunteer cadet-corps fell in next Monday, 
depressedly, with a face of shame. Even then, 
judicious silence might have turned the corner. 

Said Foxy: “After a fine speech like what you 
’eard night before last, you ought to take ’old of 
your drill with 7^-newed activity. I don’t see how 
you can avoid cornin’ out an’ marchin’ in the open 
now.” 

“ Can’t we get out of it, then, Foxy ? ” Stalky’s 
fine old silky tone should have warned him. 

“Ko, not with his giving the flag so generously. 
He told me before he left this morning that there 
was no objection to the corps usin’ it as their own. 
It’s a handsome flag.” 

Stalky returned his rifle to the rack in dead 
silence, and fell out. His example was followed by 
Hogan and Ansell. 

Perowne hesitated. “Look here, oughtn’t we 
?” he began. 

“I’ll get it out of the locker in a minute,” said 
the Sergeant, his back turned. “ Then we can ” 

“ Come on! ” shouted Stalky. “ What the devil 
are you waiting for? Dismiss! Break off.” 

“ Why — what the — where the ? ” 

[ 246 ] 


THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. 


The rattle of Sniders, slammed into the rack, 
drowned his voice, as boy after boy fell out. 

“I — I don’t know that I shan’t have to report 
this to the Head,” he stammered. 

‘ 4 Report, then, and be damned to you, ’ ’ cried 
Stalky, white to the lips, and ran out. 

“ Rummy thing!” said Beetle to McTurk. 44 1 
was in the study, doin’ a simply lovely poem about 
the Jelly-Bellied Flag-Flapper, an’ Stalky came in, 
an’ I said 4 Hullo! ’ an’ he cursed me like a bargee, 
and then he began to blub like anything. Shoved 
his head on the table and howled. Hadn’t we bet- 
ter do something ? ” 

McTurk was troubled. “P’raps he’s smashed 
himself up somehow. ’ ’ 

They found him, with very bright eyes, whistling 
between his teeth. 

44 Did I take you in, Beetle? I thought I would. 
Wasn’t it a good draw? Didn’t you think I was 
blubbin’ ? Didn’t I do it well ? Oh, you fat old 
ass!” And he began to pull Beetle’s ears and 
cheeks, in the fashion that was called 44 milking.” 

44 1 knew you were blubbin’,” Beetle replied, com- 
posedly. 44 Why aren’t you at drill ? ” 

44 Drill! What drill?” 

44 Don’t try to be a clever fool. Drill in the 
Gym.” 


17 


[ 247 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ ’Cause there isn’t any. The volunteer cadet- 
corps is broke up — disbanded — dead — putrid — cor- 
rupt — stinkin’. An’ if you look at me like that, 
Beetle, I’ll slay you too. . . . Oh, yes, an’ I’m 

goin’ to be reported to the Head for swearin’.” 


5 8*8 3 


THE LAST TERM. 


It was within a few days of the holidays, the term- 
end examinations, and, more important still, the issue 
of the College paper which Beetle edited. He had 
been cajoled into that office by the blandishments of 
Stalky and McTurk and the extreme rigor of study 
law. Once installed, he discovered, as others have 
done before him, that his duty was to do the work 
while his friends criticized. Stalky christened it the 
“ Swillingford Patriot,” in pious memory of Sponge — 
and McTurk compared the output unfavorably with 
Buskin and De Quincey. Only the Head took an in- 
terest in the publication, and his methods were pecu- 
liar. He gave Beetle the run of his brown-bound, 
tobacco-scented library; prohibiting nothing, recom- 
mending nothing. There Beetle found a fat arm-chair, 
a silver inkstand, and unlimited pens and paper. There 
were scores and scores of ancient dramatists; there 
were Hakluyt, his voyages; French translations of 
Muscovite authors called Pushkin and Lermontoff; 
little tales of a heady and bewildering nature, inter- 
spersed with unusual songs — Peacock was that writer^ 
[ 249 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


name; there was Borrow’s “Lavengro” ; an odd 
theme, purporting to be a translation of something, 
called a “ Rubaiyat,” which the Head said was a poem 
not yet come to its own; there were hundreds of vol- 
umes of verse — Crashaw; Dryden; Alexander Smith; 
L. E. L.; Lydia Sigourney; Fletcher and a purple 
island; Donne; Marlowe’s “ Faust”; and — this made 
McTurk (to whom Beetle conveyed it) sheer drunk for * 
three days — Ossian; “ The Earthly Paradise ” ; “ Ata- 
lanta in Calydon ” ; and Rossetti — to name only a few. 
Then the Head, drifting in under pretense of playing 
censor to the paper, would read here a verse and here 
another of these poets, opening up avenues. And, 
slow breathing, with half-shut eyes above his cigar, 
would he speak of great men living, and journals, long 
dead, founded in their riotous youth ; of years when all 
the planets were little new-lit stars trying to find their 
places in the uncaring void, and he, the Head, knew 
them as young men know one another. So the regu- 
lar work went to the dogs, Beetle being full of other 
matters and meters, hoarded in secret and only told to 
McTurk of an afternoon, on the sands, walking high 
and disposedly round the wreck of the Armada galleon, 
shouting and declaiming against the long-ridged seas. 

Thanks in large part to their house-master’s ex- 
perienced distrust, the three for three consecutive 
terms had been passed over for promotion to the rank 
of prefect — an office that went by merit, and carried 
[ 250 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 


with it the honor of the ground-ash, and liberty, under 
restrictions, to use it. 

“ But” said Stalky, “ come to think of it, we’ve done 
more giddy jesting with the Sixth since we’ve been 
passed over than any one else in the last seven 
years.” 

He touched his neck proudly. It was encircled by the 
stiifest of stick-up collars, which custom decreed could 
be worn only by the Sixth. And the Sixth saw those 
collars and said no word. “ Pussy,” Abanazar, or Dick 
Four of a year ago would have seen them discarded 
in five minutes or . . . But the Sixth of that 

term was made up mostly of young but brilliantly 
clever boys, pets of the house-masters, too anxious for 
their dignity to care to come to open odds with the 
resourceful three. So they crammed their caps at the 
extreme back of their heads, instead of a trifle over 
one eye as the Fifth should, and rejoiced in patent- 
leather boots on week-days, and marvellous made-up 
ties on Sundays — no man rebuking. McTurk was 
going up for Cooper’s Hill, and Stalky for Sandhurst, 
in the spring; and the Head had told them both that, 
unless they absolutely collapsed during the holidays, 
they were safe. As a trainer of colts, the Head sel- 
dom erred in an estimate of form. 

He had taken Beetle aside that day and given him 
much good advice, not one word of which did Beetle 
remember when he dashed up to the study, white with 
[ 251 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


excitement, and poured out the wondrous tale. It 
demanded a great belief. 

“ You begin on a hundred a year? ” said McTurk 
unsympathetically. “ Rot ! ” 

“ And my passage out ! It’s all settled. The Head 
says he’s been breaking me in for this for ever so long, 
and I never knew — I never knew. One don’t begin 
with writing straight off, y’know. Begin by filling 
in telegrams and cutting things out o’ papers with 
scissors.” 

“ Oh, Scissors ! What an ungodly mess you’ll make 
of it,” said Stalky. “ But, anyhow, this will be your 
last term, too. Seven years, my dearly beloved ’earers 
■ — though not prefects.” 

“Hot half bad years, either,” said McTurk. “I 
shall be sorry to leave the old Coll.; shan’t you? ” 

They looked out over the sea creaming along the 
Pebbleridge in the clear winter light. “ Wonder 
where we shall all be this time next year? ” said Stalky 
absently. 

“ This time five years,” said McTurk. 

“ Oh,” said Beetle, “ my leavin’s between ourselves. 
The Head hasn’t told any one. I know he hasn’t, 
because Prout grunted at me to-day that if I were 
more reasonable — yah! — I might be a prefect next 
term. I suppose he’s hard up for his prefects.” 

“ Let’s finish up with a row with the Sixth,” sug- 
gested McTurk. 


[ 252 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 


“ Dirty little schoolboys! ” said Stalky, who already 
saw himself a Sandhurst cadet. “ What’s the use? ” 

11 Moral effect,” quoth McTurk. “ Leave an im- 
perishable tradition, and all the rest of it.” 

“ Better go into Bideford an’ pay up our debts,” 
said Stalky. “ I’ve got three quid out of my father — 
ad hoc. Don’t owe more than thirty bob, either. 
Cut along, Beetle, and ask the Head for leave. Say 
you vrant to correct the ‘ Swillingford Patriot.’ ” 

“ W ell, I do,” said Beetle. “ It’ll be my last issue, 
and I’d like it to look decent. I’ll catch him before 
he goes to his lunch.” 

Ten minutes later they wheeled out in line, by grace 
released from five o’clock call-over, and all the after- 
noon lay before them. So also unluckily did King, 
who never passed without witticisms. But brigades 
of Kings could not have ruffled Beetle that day. 

“ Aha! Enjoying the study of light literature, my 
friends,” said he, rubbing his hands. “ Common 
mathematics are not for such soaring minds as yours, 
are they? ” 

(“ One hundred a year,” thought Beetle, smiling 
into vacancy.) 

“ Our open incompetence takes refuge in the flowery 
paths of inaccurate fiction. But a day of reckoning 
approaches, Beetle mine. I myself have prepared a 
few trifling foolish questions in Latin prose which can 
hardly be evaded even by your practised acts of de- 
[ 253 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


ception. Ye-es, Latin prose. I think, if I may say 
so — but we shall see when the papers are set — ( Ulpian 
serves your need/ Aha! ‘ Elucescebat, quoth our 
friend/ We shall see! We shall see! ” 

Still no sign from Beetle. He was on a steamer, 
his passage paid into the wide and wonderful world — 
a thousand leagues beyond Lundy Island. 

King dropped him with a snarl. 

u He doesn’t know. He’ll go on correctin’ exercises 
an’ jawin’ an’ showin’ off before the little boys next 
term — and next.” Beetle hurried after his compan- 
ions up the steep path of the furze-clad hill behind 
the College. 

They were throwing pebbles on the top of the gas- 
ometer, and the grimy gas-man in charge bade them 
desist. They watched him oil a turncock sunk in the 
ground between two furze-bushes. 

“ Cokey, what’s that for? ” said Stalky. 

“ To turn the gas on to the kitchens,” said Cokey. 
“ If so he I didn’t turn her on, yeou young gen’lemen 
’ud be lamin’ your book by candlelight.” 

“Um! ” said Stalky, and was silent for at least a 
minute. 

“ Hullo! Where are you chaps going? ” 

A bend of the lane brought them face to face with 
Tulke, senior prefect of King’s house — a smallish, 
white-haired hoy, of the type that must be promoted 
on account of its intellect, and ever afterwards ap- 
[ 251 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 


peals to the Head to support its authority when zeal 
has outrun discretion. 

The three took no sort of notice. They were on 
lawful pass. Tulke repeated his question hotly, for he 
had suffered many slights from Humber Five study, 
and fancied that he had at last caught them tripping. 

“What the devil is that to you?” Stalky replied 
with his sweetest smile. 

“ Look here, I’m not goin’ — I’m not goin’ to be 
sworn at by the Fifth! ” sputtered Tulke. 

“ Then cut along and call a prefects’ meeting,” said 
McTurk, knowing Tulke’s weakness. 

The prefect became inarticulate with rage. 

“ Mustn’t yell at the Fifth that way,” said Stalky. 
“ It’s vile bad form.” 

“ Cough it up, ducky ! ” McTurk said calmly. 

“ I — I want to know what you chaps are doing out 
of bounds? ” This with an important flourish of his 
ground-ash. 

“ Ah,” said Stalky. “ How we’re gettin’ at it. Why 
didn’t you ask that before? ” 

“ Well, I ask it now. What are you doing? ” 

“ We’re admiring you, Tulke,” said Stalky. “We 
think you’re no end of a fine chap, don’t we ? ” 

“We do! We do! ” A dog-cart with some girls 
in it swept round the corner, and Stalky promptly 
kneeled before Tulke in the attitude of prayer; so 
Tulke turned a color. 


[ 255 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ I’ve reason to believe — ” be began. 

“0 yez! Oyez! Oyez! ” shouted Beetle, after the 
manner of Bideford’s town crier, “ Tulke has reason 
to believe! Three cheers for Tulke! ” 

They were given. “ It’s all our giddy admiration,” 
said Stalky. “ You know how we love you, Tulke. 
We love you so much we think you ought to go home 
and die. You’re too good to live, Tulke.” 

“Yes,” said McTurk. “Do oblige us by dyin’. 
Think how lovely you’d look stuffed! ” 

Tulke swept up the road with an unpleasant glare 
in his eye. 

“ That means a prefects’ meeting — sure pop,” said 
Stalky. “ Honor of the Sixth involved, and all the 
rest of it. Tulke’ll write notes all this afternoon, and 
Carson will call us up after tea. They daren’t over- 
look that.” 

“ Bet you a bob he follows us ! ” said McTurk. 
“ He’s King’s pet, and it’s scalps to both of ’em if we’re 
caught out. We must be virtuous.” 

“ Then I move we go to Mother Yeo’s for a last 
gorge. W e owe her about ten bob, and Mary’ll weep 
sore when she knows we’re leaving,” said Beetle. 

“ She gave me an awful wipe on the head last time 
— Mary,” said Stalky. 

“ She does if you don’t duck,” said McTurk. “ But 
she generally kisses one back. Let’s try Mother 
Yeo.” 


[ 256 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 


They sought a little bottle-windowed half dairy, 
half restaurant, a dark-browed, two-hundred-year-old 
house, at the head of a narrow side street. They had 
patronized it from the days of their fagdom, and were 
very much friends at home. 

“We’ve come to pay our debts, mother,” said 
Stalky, sliding his arm round the fifty-six-inch waist 
of the mistress of the establishment. “ To pay our 
debts and say good-by — and — and we’re awf’ly 
hungry.” 

“Aie!” said Mother Yeo, “makkin’ love to me! 
I’m shaamed of ’ee.” 

“ ’Rackon us wouldn’t du no such thing if Mary was 
here,” said McTurk, lapsing into the broad North 
Devon that the boys used on their campaigns. 

“Who’m takin’ my name in vain?” The inner 
door opened, and Mary, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and 
apple-cheeked, entered with a bowl of cream in her 
hands. McTurk kissed her. Beetle followed suit, 
with exemplary calm. Both boys were promptly 
cuffed. 

“ River kiss the maid when ’e can kiss the mistress,” 
said Stalky, shamelessly winking at Mother Yeo, as he 
investigated a shelf of jams. 

“ Glad to see one of ’ee don’t want his head slapped 
no more? ” said Mary invitingly, in that direction. 

“ Heu ! Reckon I can get ’em give me,” said Stalky, 
his back turned. 


[ 257 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Kot by me — yeou little masterpiece! ” 

u Kiver asked ’ee. There’s maids to Hortham. 
Yiss — an’ Appledore.” An unreprodncible sniff, half 
contempt, half reminiscence, rounded the retort. 

“Aie! Yeou won’t niver come to no good end. 
Whutt be ’baout, smellin’ the cream? ” 

“ ’Tees bad,” said Stalky. “ Zmell ’un.” 

Incautiously Mary did as she was bid. 

“ Bidevoor kiss.” 

“Kiver amiss,” said Stalky, taking it without in- 
jury. 

“ Yeou — yeou — yeou — ” Mary began, bubbling 
with mirth. 

“ They’m better to Kortham — more rich, laike — 
an’ us gets them give back again,” he said, while Mc- 
Turk solemnly waltzed Mother Yeo out of breath, and 
Beetle told Mary the sad news, as they sat down to 
clotted cream, jam, and hot bread. 

“ Yiss. Yeou’ll niver zee us no more, Mary. We’m 
goin’ to be passons an’ missioners.” 

“ Steady the Buffs ! ” said McTurk, looking through 
the blind. “ Tulke has followed us. He’s cornin’ up 
the street now.” 

“ They’ve niver put us out o’ bounds,” said Mother 
Yeo. “ Bide yeou still, my little dearrs.” She rolled 
into the inner room to make the score. 

“ Mary,” said Stalky, suddenly, with tragic inten- 
sity. “ Do ’ee lov’ me, Mary? ” 

[ 258 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 


“las — fai! Tailed ’ee zo since yeou was zo high! ” 
the damsel replied. 

“ Zee ’un cornin’ up street, then? ” Stalky pointed 
to the unconscious Tulke. “ HeVe niver been kissed 
by no sort or manner o’ maid in hees borned laife, 
Mary. Oh, ’tees shaamful! ” 

“ Whutt’s to do with me? ’Twill come to ’un in the 
way o’ nature, I rackon.” She nodded her head saga- 
ciously. “ You niver want me to kiss un — sure-Zy ? 99 

“ Give ’ee half-a-crown if ’ee will,” said Stalky, ex- 
hibiting the coin. 

Half-a-crown was much to Mary Yeo, and a jest was 
more; but 

“ Yeu’m afraid,” said McTurk, at the psychological 
moment. 

“Aie!” Beetle echoed, knowing her weak point. 
“ There’s not a maid to Hortham ’ud think twice. An’ 
yeou such a fine maid, tu ! 99 

McTurk planted one foot firmly against the inner 
door lest Mother Yeo should return inopportunely, for 
Mary’3 face was set. It was then that Tulke found 
his way blocked by a tall daughter of Devon — that 
county of easy kisses, the pleasantest under the sun. 
He dodged aside politely. She reflected a moment, 
and laid a vast hand upon his shoulder. 

“ Where be ’ee gwaine tu, my dearr? ” said she. 

Over the handkerchief he had crammed into his 
mouth Stalky could see the boy turn scarlet. 

[ 259 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Gie I a kiss! Don’t they larn ’ee manners to Col- 
lege? ” 

Tulke gasped and wheeled. Solemnly and con- 
scientiously Mary kissed him twice, and the luckless 
prefect fled. 

She stepped into the shop, her eyes full of simple 
wonder. 

“ Kissed ’un? ” said Stalky, handing over the money. 

“ Iss, fai! But, oh, my little body, he’m no Col- 
leger. ’Zeemed tu-minded to cry, laike.” 

“ Well, we won’t. You couldn’t make us cry that 
way,” said McTurk. “ Try.” 

Whereupon Mary cuffed them all round. 

As they went out with tingling ears, said Stalky 
generally, “ Don’t think there’ll be much of a prefects’ 
meeting.” 

“ Won’t there, just! ” said Beetle. “Look here. 
If he kissed her — which is our tack — he is a cynically 
immoral hog, and his conduct is blatant indecency. 
Confer orationes Regis furiosissimi , when he collared 
me readin’ ‘ Don Juan.’ ” 

“ ’Course he kissed her,” said McTurk. “ In the 
middle of the street. With his house-cap on! ” 

“ Time, 3.57 p.m. Make a note o’ that. What 
d’vou mean, Beetle? ” said Stalky. 

“ Well! He’s a truthful little beast. He may say 
he was kissed.” 

“ And then?” 

[ 260 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 


* Why, then ! ” Beetle capered at the mere thought 
of it. “ Don’t you see? The corollary to the giddy 
proposition is that the Sixth can’t protect ’emselves 
from outrages an’ ravishin’s. Want nursemaids to look 
after ’em! We’ve only got to whisper that to the 
Coll. Jam for the Sixth ! Jam for us! Either way 
it’s jammy! ” 

“ By Gum! ” said Stalky. “ Our last term’s endin’ 
well. How you cut along an’ finish up your old rag, 
and Turkey and me will help. We’ll go in the back 
way. Ho need to bother Randall.” 

“ Don’t play the giddy garden-goat, then? ” Beetle 
knew what help meant, though he was by no means 
averse to showing his importance before his allies. 
The little loft behind Randall’s printing-office was his 
own territory, where he saw himself already control- 
ling the “ Times.” Here, under the guidance of the 
inky apprentice, he had learned to find his way more or 
less circuitously about the case, and considered himself 
an expert compositor. 

The school paper in its locked formes lay on a stone- 
topped table, a proof by the side; but not for worlds 
would Beetle have corrected from the mere proof. 
With a mallet and a pair of tweezers, he knocked out 
mysterious wedges of wood that released the forme, 
picked a letter here and inserted a letter there, reading 
as he went along and stopping much to chuckle over 
his own contributions. 


[ 261 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Yon won’t show off like that/’ said McTurk, 
“ wffien you’ve got to do it for your living. Upside 
down and backwards, isn’t it? Let’s see if I can read 
it.” 

“Get out!” said Beetle. “ Go and read those 
formes in the rack there, if you think you know so 
much.” 

“ F ormes in a rack ! What’s that ? Don’t be so 
beastly professional.” 

McTurk drew off with Stalky to prowl about the 
office. They left little unturned. 

“ Come here a shake, Beetle. What’s this thing? ” 
said Stalky, in a few minutes. “ Looks familiar.” 

Said Beetle, after a glance: “It’s King’s Latin 

prose exam, paper. In — In Verrem: actio prima. 
What a lark! ” 

“ Think o’ the pure-souled, high-minded boys who’d 
give their eyes for a squint at it! ” said McTurk. 

“Ko, Willie dear,” said Stalky; “that would be 
wrong and painful to our kind teachers. You wouldn’t 
crib, Willie, would you? ” 

“ Can’t read the beastly stuff, anyhow,” was the 
reply. “ Besides, we’re leavin’ at the end o’ the term, 
so it makes no difference to us.” 

“ ’Member what the Considerate Bloomer did to 
Spraggon’s account of the Puffin’ ton Hounds? We 
must sugar Mr. King’s milk for him,” said Stalky, all 
lighted from within by a devilish joy. “Let’s see 
[ 262 ] 


THE LAST TEEM. 


what Beetle can do with those forceps he’s so proud 
of” 

“ Don’t see how you can make Latin prose much 
more cock-eye than it is, but we’ll try,” said Beetle, 
transposing an aliud and Asice from two sentences. 
“Let’s see! We’ll put that full-stop a little further 
on, and begin the sentence with the next capital. 
Hurrah ! Here’s three lines that can move up all in a 
lump.” 

“ ‘ One of those scientific rests for which this emi- 
nent huntsman is so justly celebrated.’ ” Stalky knew 
the Puifington run by heart. 

“Hold on! Here’s a vol — voluntate quidnam all 
by itself,” said McTurk. 

“ I’ll attend to her in a shake. Quidnam goes after 
Dolabella” 

“ Good old Dolabella,” murmured Stalky. “ Don’t 
break him. Yile prose Cicero wrote, didn’t he? He 
ought to be grateful for ” 

“ Hullo ! ” said McTurk, over another' forme. 
“ What price a giddy ode? Qui — quis — oh, it’s Quis 
multa gracilis , o’ course.” 

“ Bring it along. We’ve sugared the milk here,” 
said Stalky, after a few minutes’ zealous toil. “ Hever 
thrash your hounds unnecessarily.” 

“ Quis munditiis? I swear that’s not bad,” began 
Beetle, plying the tweezers. “ Don’t that interroga- 
tion look pretty? Hen quoties fidem! That sounds 
18 [ 263 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


as if the chap were anxious an* excited. Cui flavam 
religas in rosa — Whose flavor is relegated to a rose. 
Mutatdsque Deos fiebit in antro .” 

“ Mute gods weepin’ in a cave,” suggested Stalky. 
“ ’Pon my Sam, Horace needs as much lookin’ after as 
— 1 Tulke.” 

They edited him faithfully till it was too dark to see. 

“‘Aha! Elucescebat , quoth our friend.’ Ulpian 
serves my need, does it ? If King can make anything 
out of that , I’m a blue-eyed squatteroo,” said Beetle, 
as they slid out of the loft window into a back alley 
of old acquaintance and started on a three-mile trot to 
the College. But the revision of the classics had de- 
tained them too long. They halted, blown and breath- 
less, in the furze at the back of the gasometer, the 
College lights twinkling below, ten minutes at least 
late for tea and lock-up. 

“ It’s no good,’’ puffed McTurk. “ Bet a bob Foxy 
is waiting for defaulters under the lamp by the Fives 
Court. It’s a nuisance, too, because the Head gave us 
long leave, and one doesn’t like to break it.” 

“ ‘ Let me now from the bonded ware’ouse of my 
knowledge,’ ” began Stalky. 

“ Oh, rot! Don’t Jorrock. Can we make a run 
for it? ” snapped McTurk. 

“ ‘ Bishops’ boots Mr. Radcliffe also condemned, an’ 
spoke ’ighly in favor of tops cleaned with champagne 
[ 264 ] 


THE LAST TEEM. 


an* abricot jam/ Where’s that thing Cokey was 
twiddlin’ this afternoon? ” 

They heard him groping in the wet, and presently 
beheld a great miracle. The lights of the Coastguard 
cottages near the sea went out; the brilliantly illumi- 
nated windows of the Golf -club disappeared, and were 
followed by the frontages of the two hotels. Scattered 
villas dulled, twinkled, and vanished. Last of all, the 
College lights died also. They w r ere left in the pitchy 
darkness of a windy winter’s night. 

“ ‘ Blister my kidneys. It is a frost. The dahlias 
are dead!’ ” said Stalky. “ Bunk! ” 

They squattered through the dripping gorse as the 
College hummed like an angry hive and the dining- 
rooms chorused, “ Gas ! gas ! gas ! ” till they came to the 
edge of the sunk path that divided them from their 
study. Dropping that ha-ha like bullets, and rebound- 
ing like boys, they dashed to their study, in less than 
two minutes had changed into dry trousers and coat, 
and, ostentatiously slippered, joined the mob in the 
dining-hall, which resembled the storm-centre of a 
South American revolution. 

“ c Hellish dark and smells of cheese/ ” Stalky el- 
bowed his way into the press, howling lustily for gas. 
“ Cokey must have gone for a walk. Eoxy’ll have to 
find him/’ 

Prout, as the nearest house-master, was trying to re- 
store order, for rude boys were flicking butter-pats 
[ 265 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


across chaos, and McTurk had turned on the fags’ tea- 
urn, so that many were parboiled and wept with an 
unfeigned dolor. The Fourth and Upper Third broke 
into the school song, the u Vive la Compagnie ,” to the 
accompaniment of drumming knife-handles; and the 
junior forms shrilled bat-like shrieks and raided one 
another’s victuals. Two hundred and fifty boys in 
high condition, seeking for more light, are truly earn- 
est inquirers. 

When a most vile smell of gas told them that sup- 
plies had been renewed, Stalky, waistcoat unbuttoned, 
sat gorgedly over what might have been his fourth cup 
of tea. “ And that’s all right,” he said. “ Hullo ! 
’Ere’s Pomponius Ego ! ” 

It was Carson, the head of the school, a simple, 
straight-minded soul, and a pillar of the First Fifteen, 
who crossed over from the prefects’ table and in a 
husky, official voice invited the three to attend in his 
study in half an hour. 

“ Prefects’ meetin’ ! Prefects’ meetin’ ! ” hissed the 
tables, and they imitated barbarically the actions and 
effects of the ground-ash. 

“ How are we goin’ to jest with ’em? ” said Stalky, 
turning half -face to Beetle. “ It’s your play this 
time! ” 

“ Look here,” was the answer, “ all I want you to do 
is not to laugh. I’m goin’ to take charge o’ young 
Tulke’s immorality — a la King, and it’s goin’ to be 
[ 266 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 


serious. If you can’t help laughin’ don’t look at me, 
or I’ll go pop.” 

“ I see. All right,” said Stalky. 

McTurk’s lank frame stiffened in every muscle and 
his eyelids dropped half over his eyes. That last was 
a war-signal. 

The eight or nine seniors, their faces very set and 
sober, were ranged in chairs round Carson’s severely 
Philistine study. Tulke was not popular among 
them, and a few who had had experience of Stalky and 
Company doubted that he might, perhaps, have made 
an ass of himself. But the dignity of the Sixth was 
to be upheld. So Carson began hurriedly: 

“ Look here, you chaps, I’ve — we’ve sent for you to 
tell you you’re a good deal too cheeky to the Sixth — 
have been for some time — and — and we’ve stood about 
as much as we’re goin’ to, and it seems you’ve been 
cursin’ and swearin’ at Tulke on the Bideford road this 
afternoon, and we’re goin’ to show you you can’t do it. 
That’s all.” 

“Well, that’s awfully good of you,” said Stalky, 
“ but we happen to have a few rights of our own, too. 
You can’t, just because you happen to be made pre- 
fects, haul up seniors and jaw ’em on spec., like a 
house-master. We aren’t fags, Carson. This kind of 
thing may do for Davies Tertius, but it won’t do for 
us.” 

“ It’s only old Prout’s lunacy that we weren’t pre- 

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STALKY & CO. 


feets long ago. You know that,” said McTurk. “ You 
haven’t any tact.” 

“ Hold on,” said Beetle. “ A prefects’ meetin’ has 
to be reported to the Head. I want to know if the 
Head backs Tulke in this business? ” 

“ Well — well, it isn’t exactly a prefects’ meet- 
ing,” said Carson. “We only called you in to warn 
you.” 

“ But all the prefects are here,” Beetle insisted. 
“ Where’s the difference? ” 

“My Gum! ” said Stalky. “ Do you mean to say 
you’ve just called us in for a jaw — after cornin’ to us 
before the whole school at tea an’ givin’ ’em the im- 
pression it was a prefects’ meeting? ’Pon my Sam, 
Carson, you’ll get into trouble, you will.” 

“ Hole-an’-corner business — hole-an’-corner busi- 
ness,” said McTurk, wagging his head. “ Beastly 
suspicious.” 

The Sixth looked at each other uneasily. Tulke 
had called three prefects’ meetings in two terms, till 
the Head had informed the Sixth that they were ex- 
pected to maintain discipline without the recurrent 
menace of his authority. How, it seemed that they 
had made a blunder at the outset, but any right- 
minded boy would have sunk the legality and been 
properly impressed by the Court. Beetle’s protest 
was distinct “ cheek.” 

“Well, you chaps deserve a lickin’,” cried one 

[ 268 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 

Haughten incautiously. Then was Beetle filled with 
a noble inspiration. 

“ For interferin’ with Tulke’s amours, eh? ” Tulke 
turned a rich sloe color. “ Oh, no, you don’t ! ” Beetle 
went on. “ You’ve had your innings. We’ve been 
sent up for cursing and swearing at you, and we’re 
goin’ to be let off with a warning! Are we? How 
then, you’re going to catch it.” 

“ I — I — I — ” Tulke began. “ Don’t let that 
young devil start jawing.” 

“ If you’ve anything to say you must say it de- 
cently,” said Carson. 

“Decently? I will. How look here. When we 
went into Bideford we met this ornament of the Sixth 
— is that decent enough? — hanging about on the road 
with a nasty look in his eye. We didn’t know then 
why he was so anxious to stop us, but at five minutes to 
four, when we were in Yeo’s shop, we saw Tulke in 
broad daylight, with his house-cap on, kissin’ ai\’ hug- 
gin’ a woman on the pavement. Is that decent enough 
for you? ” 

“ I didn’t — I wasn’t.” 

“ We saw you ! ” said Beetle. “ And now — I’ll be 
decent, Carson — you sneak back with her kisses ” (not 
for nothing had Beetle perused the later poets) “ hot 
on your lips and call prefects’ meetings, which aren’t 
prefects’ meetings, to uphold the honor of the Sixth.” 
A new and heaven-cleft path opened before him that 
[ 269 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


instant. “ And how do we know,” he shouted — “ how 
do we know how many of the Sixth are mixed up in 
this abominable affair? ” 

“ Yes, that’s w T hat we want to know,” said McTurk, 
with simple dignity. 

“We meant to come to you about it quietly, Carson, 
but you would have the meeting,” said Stalky sympa- 
thetically. 

The Sixth were too taken aback to reply. So, 
carefully modelling his rhetoric on King, Beetle fol- 
lowed up the attack, surpassing and surprising him- 
self. 

“ It — it isn’t so much the cynical immorality of the 
biznai, as the blatant indecency of it, that’s so awful. 
As far as we can see, it’s impossible for us to go into 
Bideford without runnin’ up against some prefect’s un- 
wholesome amours. There’s nothing to snigger over, 
Haughten. I don’t pretend to know much about these 
things — but it seems to me a chap must be pretty far 
dead in sin ” (that was a quotation from the school 
chaplain) “ when he takes to embracing his para- 
mours ” (that was Hakluyt) “ before all the city ” (a 
reminiscence of Milton). “ He might at least have 
the decency — you’re authorities on decency, I believe 
— to wait till dark. But he didn’t. You didn’t! Oh, 
Tulke. You — you incontinent little animal! ” 

“ Here, shut up a minute. What’s all this about, 
Tulke? ” said Carson. 


[ 270 ] 


THE LAST TEEM. 


“ I — look here. Fm awfully sorry. I never 
thought Beetle would take this line.” 

“ Because — you’ve — no decency — you — thought — 
I hadn’t,” cried Beetle all in one breath. 

u Tried to cover it all up with a conspiracy, did 
you? ” said Stalky. 

“ Direct insult to all three of us,” said McTurk. 
“ A most filthy mind you have, Tulke.” 

“ I’ll shove you fellows outside the door if you go 
on like this,” said Carson angrily. 

“ That proves it’s a conspiracy,” said Stalky, with 
the air of a virgin martyr. 

“ I — I was goin’ along the street — I swear I was,” 
cried Tulke, “ and — and I’m awfully sorry about it — 
a woman came up and kissed me. I swear I didn’t 
kiss her.” 

There was a pause, filled by Stalky’s long, liquid 
whistle of contempt, amazement, and derision. 

“ On my honor,” gulped the persecuted one. “ Oh, 
do stop him jawing.” 

“ Very good,” McTurk interjected. “We are com- 
pelled, of course, to accept your statement.” 

“Confound it!” roared Naughten. “You aren’t 
head-prefect here, McTurk.” 

“ Oh, well,” returned the Irishman, “ you know 
Tulke better than we do. I am only speaking for 
ourselves. We accept Tulke’s word. But all I can 
say is that if I’d been collared in a similarly disgustin’ 
[ 271 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


situation, and had offered the same explanation Tulke 
has, I — I wonder what you’d have said. However, it 
seems on Tulke’s word of honor ” 

“ And Tulkus — beg pardon — kiss , of course — 
Tulkiss is an honorable man,” put in Stalky. 

“ that the Sixth can’t protect ’emselves from 

bein’ kissed when they go for a walk! ” cried Beetle, 
taking up the running with a rush. “ Sweet business, 
isn’t it? Cheerful thing to tell the fags, ain’t it? We 
aren’t prefects, of course, but we aren’t kissed very 
much. Don’t think that sort of thing ever enters our 
heads; does it, Stalky? ” 

“ Oh, no! ” said Stalky, turning aside to hide his 
emotions. McTurk’s face merely expressed lofty con- 
tempt and a little weariness. 

“ Well, you seem to know a lot about it,” interposed 
a prefect. 

“ Can’t help it — when you chaps shove it under our 
noses.” Beetle dropped into a drawling parody of 
King’s most biting colloquial style — the gentle rain 
after the thunder-storm. “Well, it’s all very suffi- 
ciently vile and disgraceful, isn’t it? I don’t know 
who comes out of it worst: Tulke, who happens to have 
been caught; or the other fellows who haven’t. And 
we — ” here he wheeled fiercely on the other two — 
“ we’ve got to stand up and be jawed by them because 
we’ve disturbed their intrigues.” 

“Hang it! I only wanted to give you a word of 

[ 272 ] 


THE LAST TEEM. 

warning,” said Carson, thereby handing himself bound 
to the enemy. 

“ Warn? You? ” This with the air of one who 
finds loathsome gifts in his locker. “ Carson, would 
you be good enough to tell us what conceivable thing 
there is that you are entitled to warn us about after this 
exposure ? W arn ? Oh, it’s a little too much ! Let’s 
go somewhere where it’s clean.” 

The door banged behind their outraged innocence. 

“ Oh, Beetle! Beetle! Beetle! Golden Beetle! ” 
sobbed Stalky, hurling himself on Beetle’s panting 
bosom as soon as they reached the study. “ However 
did you do it? ” 

“ Dear-r man! ” said McTurk, embracing Beetle’s 
head with both arms, while he swayed it to and fro on 
the neck, in time to this ancient burden — 

“ Pretty lips — sweeter than — cherry or plum, 

Always look — jolly and — never look glum ; 

Seem to say — Come away. Kissy ! — come, come ! 
Yummy-yum ! Yummy-yum ! Yummy-yum-yum !” 

“ Look out. You’ll smash my gig-lamps,” puffed 
Beetle, emerging. “ Wasn’t it glorious? Didn’t I 
‘ Eric ’ ’em splendidly? Did you spot my cribs from 
King? Oh, blow! ” His countenance clouded. 
“ There’s one adjective I didn’t use — obscene. Don’t 
know how I forgot that. It’s one of King’s pet ones, 
too.” 


[ 2731 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Kever mind. They’ll be sendin’ ambassadors 
round in half a shake to beg us not to tell the school. 
It’s a deuced serious business for them,” said McTurk. 
“ Poor Sixth — poor old Sixth! ” 

“ Immoral young rips,” Stalky snorted. “ What an 
example to pure-souled boys like you and me ! ” 

And the Sixth in Carson’s study sat aghast, glower- 
ing at Tulke, who was on the edge of tears. 

“ Well,” said the head-prefect acidly. “ You’ve 
made a pretty average ghastly mess of it, Tulke.” 

“W r hy — why didn’t you lick that young devil 
Beetle before he began jawing? ” Tulke wailed. 

“ I knew there’d be a row,” said a prefect of Prout’s 
house. “ But you would insist on the meeting, 
Tulke.” 

“ Yes, and a fat lot of good it’s done us,” said 
TTaughten. u They come in here and jaw our heads 
off when we ought to be jawin’ them. Beetle talks to 
us as if we were a lot of blackguards and — and all that. 
And when they’ve hung us up to dry, they go out and 
slam the door like a house-master. All your fault, 
Tulke.” 

* But I didn’t kiss her.” 

“ You ass! If you’d said you had and stuck to it, 
it would have been ten times better than what you 
did,” Naughten retorted. “ Kow they’ll tell the whole 
school — and Beetle’ll make up a lot of beastly rhymes 
and nick-names.” 


[ 274 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 


“But, hang it, she kissed me!” Outside of his 
work, Tulke’s mind moved slowly. 

“ Pm not thinking of you. Pm thinking of us. 
1 11 go up to their study and see if I can make ’em keep 
quiet! ” 

“Tulke’s awf’ly cut up about this business,” 
Haughten began, ingratiatingly, when he found 
Beetle. 

“ Who’s kissed him this time? ” 

a and I’ve come to ask you chaps, and especially 

you, Beetle, not to let the thing he known all over the 
school. Of course, fellows as senior as you are can 
easily see why.” 

“ Um! ” said Beetle, with the cold reluctance of one 
who foresees an unpleasant public duty. “ I suppose 
I must go and talk to the Sixth again.” 

“ Hot the least need, my dear chap, I assure you,” 
said Haughten hastily. “I’ll take any message you 
care to send.” 

But the chance of supplying the missing adjective 
was too tempting. So Haughten returned to that still 
undissolved meeting, Beetle, white, icy, and aloof, at 
his heels. 

“ There seems,” he began, with laboriously crisp 
articulation, “ there seems to be a certain amount of 
uneasiness among you as to the steps we may think 
fit to take in regard to this last revelation of the — ah — 
obscene. If it is any consolation to you to know that 
[ 275 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


we have decided — for the honor of the school, you 
understand — to keep our mouths shut as to these — ah 
— obscenities, you — ah — have it.” 

He wheeled, his head among the stars, and strode 
statelily back to his study, where Stalky and McTurk 
lay side by side upon the table wiping their tearful 
eves — too weak to move. 


The Latin prose paper was a success beyond their 
wildest dreams. Stalky and McTurk were, of course, 
out of all examinations (they did extra-tuition with the 
ITead), but Beetle attended with zeal. 

“ This, I presume, is a par-ergon on your part,” said 
King, as he dealt out the papers. “ One final exhibi- 
tion ere you are translated to loftier spheres? A last 
attack on the classics? It seems to confound you 
already.” 

Beetle studied the print with knit brows. “ I can’t 
make head or tail of it,” he murmured. “ What does 
it mean? ” 

“ Ko, no!” said King, with scholastic coquetry. 
“ We depend upon you to give us the meaning. This 
is an examination, Beetle mine, not a guessing-compe- 
tition. You will find your associates have no difficulty 
in ” 

Tulke left his place and laid the paper on the desk. 
King looked, read, and turned a ghastly green. 

[ 276 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 


“ Stalky’s missing a heap,” thought Beetle. “ Won- 
der how King’ll get out of it ? ” 

“ There seems,” King began with a gulp, “ a certain 
modicum of truth in our Beetle’s remark. I am — er 
— inclined to believe that the worthy Randall must 
have dropped this in forme — if you know what that 
means. Beetle, you purport to be an editor. Perhaps 
you can enlighten the form as to formes.” 

“ What, sir? Whose form? I don’t see that there’s 
any verb in this sentence at all, an’ — an’ — the Ode is 
all different, somehow.” 

“ I was about to say, before you volunteered your 
criticism, that an accident must have befallen the 
paper in type, and that the printer reset it by the light 
of nature. Ko — ” he held the thing at arm’s length 
— “ our Randall is not an authority on Cicero or 
Horace.” 

“ Rather mean to shove it off on Randall,” whis- 
pered Beetle to his neighbor. “ King must ha’ been 
as screwed as an owl when he wrote it out.” 

“ But we can amend the error by dictating it.” 

“ dSTo, sir.” The answer came pat from a dozen 
throats at once. “ That cuts the time for the exam. 
Only two hours allowed, sir. ’Tisn’t fair. It’s a 
printed-paper exam. How’re we goin’ to be marked 
for it? It’s all Randall’s fault. It isn’t our fault, any- 
how. An exam.’s an exam.,” etc., etc. 

ISTaturally Mr. King considered this was an attempt 

[ 277 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


to undermine his authority, and, instead of beginning 
dictation at once, delivered a lecture on the spirit in 
which examinations should be approached. As the 
storm subsided, Beetle fanned it afresh. 

“ Eh? What? What was that you were saying to 
MacLagan? ” 

“ I only said I thought the papers ought to have 
been looked at before they were given out, sir.” 

“ Hear, hear! ” from a back bench. 

Mr. King wished to know whether Beetle took it 
upon himself personally to conduct the traditions of 
the school. His zeal for knowledge ate up another 
fifteen minutes, during which the prefects showed un- 
mistakable signs of boredom. 

“ Oh, it was a giddy time,” said Beetle, afterwards, 
in dismantled Humber Five. “ He gibbered a bit, 
and I kept him on the gibber, and then he dictated 
about a half of Dolabella & Co.” 

“ Good old Dolabella! Friend of mine. Yes?” 
said Stalky, pensively. 

“ Then we had to ask him how every other word was 
spelt, of course, and he gibbered a lot more. He cursed 
me and MacLagan (Mac played up like a trump) and 
Randall, and the Materialized ignorance of the un- 
scholarly middle classes,’ 1 lust for mere marks,’ and 
all the rest. It was what you might call a final exhi- 
bition — a last attack — a giddy par-ergon.” 

“ But o’ course he was blind squiffy when he wrote 

[ 278 ] 


THE LAST TERM. 

the paper. I hope you explained that ? ” said 
Stalky. 

“ Oh, yes. I told Tulke so. I said an immoral pre- 
fect an’ a drunken house-master were legitimate infer- 
ences. Tulke nearly blubbed. He’s awfully shy of 
us since Mary’s time.” 

Tulke preserved that modesty till the last moment 
— till the journey-money had been paid, and the boys 
were filling the brakes that took them to the station. 
Then the three tenderly constrained him to wait 
a while. 

“ You see, Tulke, you may be a prefect,” said 
Stalky, “ but I’ve left the Coll. Do you see, Tulke, 
dear? ” 

“ Yes, I see. Don’t bear malice, Stalky.” 

“ Stalky? Curse your impudence, you young cub,” 
shouted Stalky, magnificent in top-hat, stiff collar, 
spats, and high-waisted, snuff -colored ulster. “ I want 
you to understand that Pm Mister Corkran, an’ you’re 
a dirty little schoolboy.” 

“ Besides bein’ frabjously immoral,” said McTurk. 
“ Wonder you aren’t ashamed to foist your company on 
pure-minded boys like us.” 

“ Come on, Tulke,” cried Yaughten, from the pre- 
fects’ brake. 

“ Yes, we’re cornin’. Shove up and make room, you 
Collegers. You’ve all got to be back next term, with 
your ‘ Yes, sir,’ and tf Oh, sir,’ an’ ‘ ]STo, sir,’ an’ ‘ Please* 
[ 279 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


sir ’ ; but before we say good-by we’re going to tell you 
a little story. Go on, Dickie ” (this to the driver) ; 
“ we’re quite ready. Kick that hat-box under the 
seat, an’ don’t crowd your Uncle Stalky.” 

“ As nice a lot of high-minded youngsters as you’d 
wish to see,” said McTurk, gazing round with bland 
patronage. “ A trifle immoral, but then — boys will 
be boys. It’s no good tryin’ to look stuffy, Carson. 
Mister Corkran will now oblige with the story of 
Tulke an’ Mary Yeo! ” 


[ 280 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


Part II. 

That very Infant who told the story of the cap. 
ture of Boh Ha Ghee * to Eustace Cleaver, novelist, 
inherited an estateful baronetcy, with vast revenues, 
resigned the service, and became a landholder, while 
his mother stood guard over him to see that he mar- 
ried the right girl. But, new to his position, he 
presented the local volunteers with a full-sized maga- 
zine-rifle range, two miles long, across the heart of 
his estate, and the surrounding families, who lived 
in savage seclusion among woods full of pheasants, 
regarded him as an erring maniac. The noise of 
the firing disturbed their poultry, and Infant was 
cast out from the society of J. P.’s and decent men 
till such time as a daughter of the county might lure 
him back to right thinking. He took his revenge 
by filling the house with choice selections of old 
schoolmates home on leave — affable detrimentals, at 
whom the bicycle-riding maidens of the surrounding 
families were allowed to look from afar. I knew 
* A Conference of the Powers : ** Many Inrentions.” 

[ 281 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


when a troop-ship was in port by the Infant’s invi- 
tations. Sometimes he would produce old friends 
of equal seniority; at others, young and blushing 
giants whom I had left small fags far down in the 
Lower Second ; and to these Infant and the elders 
expounded the whole duty of man in the Army. 

“ I’ve had to cut the service,” said the Infant; 
“ but that’s no reason why my vast stores of experi- 
ence should be lost to posterity.” He was just 
thirty, and in that same summer an imperious wire 
drew me to his baronial castle: “ Got good haul; 
ex Tamar. Come along.” 

It was an unusually good haul, arranged with a 
single eye to my benefit. There was a baldish, 
broken-down captain of Native Infantry, shivering 
with ague behind an indomitable red nose — and they 
called him Captain Dickson. There was another 
captain, also of Native Infantry, with a fair mus- 
tache; his face was like white glass, and his hands 
were fragile, but he answered joyfully to the cry of 
Tertius. There was an enormously big and well- 
kept man, who had evidently not campaigned for 
years, clean-shaved, soft-voiced, and cat-like, but 
still Abanazar for all that he adorned the Indian 
Political Service; and there was a lean Irishman, 
his face tanned blue-black with the suns of the Tele- 
graph Department. Luckily the baize doors of the 
bachelors’ wing fitted tight, for we dressed promis- 
[ 282 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


cucmsly in the corridor or in each other’s rooms, 
talking, calling, shouting, and anon waltzing by 
pairs to songs of Dick Four’s own devising. 

There were sixty years of mixed work to be sifted 
out between us, and since we had met one another 
from time to time in the quick scene-shifting of 
India — a dinner, camp, or a race-meeting here; a 
dak-bungalow or railway station up country some- 
where else — we had never quite lost touch. Infant 
sat on the banisters, hungrily and enviously drink- 
ing it in. He enjoyed his baronetcy, but his heart 
yearned for the old days. 

It was a cheerful babel of matters personal, pro- 
vincial, and imperial, pieces of old call-over lists, 
and new policies, cut short by the roar of a Bur- 
mese gong, and we went down not less than a quar- 
ter of a mile of stairs to meet Infant’s mother, who 
had known us all in our school-days and greeted us 
as if those had ended a week ago. But it was fifteen 
years since, with tears of laughter, she had lent me 
gray princess-skirt for amateur theatricals. 

That was a dinner from the “ Arabian Nights,” 
served in an eighty-foot hall full of ancestors and 
pots of flowering roses, and, what was more im- 
pressive, heated by steam. When it was ended and 
the little mother had gone away — (“ You boys want 
to talk, so I shall say good-night now ”)— we gath- 
ered about an apple- wood fire, in a gigantic polished 
[ 283 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


steel grate, under a mantelpiece ten feet high, and 
the Infant compassed us about with curious liqueurs 
and that kind of cigarette which serves best to in- 
j troduce your own pipe. 

44 Oh, bliss!” grunted Dick Four from a sofa, 
where he had been packed with a rug over him. 
44 First time I’ve been warm since I came home.” 

We were all nearly on top of the fire, except Infant, 
who had been long enough at Home to take exer- 
cise when- he felt chilled. This is a grisly diversion, 
but much affected by the English of the Island. 

44 If you say a word about cold tubs and brisk 
walks,” drawled McTurk, 44 I’ll kill you, Infant. 
I’ve got a liver, too. ’Member when we used to 
think it a treat to turn out of our beds on a Sunday 
morning — thermometer fifty-seven degrees if it was 
summer — and bathe off the Pebbleridge ? Ugh!” 

44 ’Thing I don’t understand,” saidTertius, 44 was 
the way we chaps used to go down into the lava- 
tories, boil ourselves pink, and then come up with 
all our pores open into a young snow-storm or a 
black frost. Yet none of our chaps died, that I can 
remember. ’ ’ 

44 Talkin’ of baths,” said McTurk, with a chuckle, 
44 ’member our bath in Humber Five, Beetle, the 
night Babbits-Eggs rocked King? What wouldn’t 
I give to see old Stalky now ! He is the only one 
of the two Studies not here.” 

[ 284 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


“ Stalky is the great man of his Century,” said 
Dick Four. 

“ How d’you know ? ” I asked. 

“ How do I know? ” said Dick Four, scornfully. 
“ If you’ve ever been in a tight place with Stalky 
you wouldn’t ask.” 

“ I haven’t seen him since the camp at Pindi in 
’87,” I said. “He was goin’ strong then — about 
seven feet high and four feet through.” 

“Adequate chap. Infernally adequate,” said 
Tertius, pulling his mustache and staring into the 
fire. 

“ Got dam’ near court-martialed and broke in 
Egypt in ’84,” the Infant volunteered. “I went 
out in the same trooper with him — as raw as he 
was. Only /showed it, and Stalky didn’t.” 

“What was the trouble?” said McTurk, reach- 
ing forward absently to twitch my dress-tie into 
position. 

“ Oh, nothing. His colonel trusted him to take 
twenty Tommies out to wash, or groom camels, or 
something at the back of Suakin, and Stalky got 
embroiled with Fuzzies five miles in the interior. 
He conducted a masterly retreat and wiped up eight 
of ’em. He knew jolly well he’d no right to go out 
so far, so he took the initiative and pitched in a let- 
ter to his colonel, who was frothing at the mouth, 
complaining of the ‘ paucity of support accorded to 
[285] 


STALKY & CO. 


him in his operations.’ Gad, it might have been 
one fat brigadier slangin’ another! Then he went 
into the Staff Corps.” 

4 4 That — is — entirely — Stalky,” said Abanazar 
from his arm-chair. 

“ You’ve come across him, too? ” I said. 

“ Oh, yes,” he replied in his softest tones. “I 
was at the tail of that — that epic. Don’t you chaps 
know? ” 

We did not — Infant, McTurk, and I ; and we 
called for information very politely. 

“ ’T wasn’t anything,” said Tertius. “ We got 
into a mess up in the Khye-Kheen Hills a couple 
o’ years ago, and Stalky pulled us through. That’s 
all.” 

McTurk gazed at Tertius with all an Irishman’s 
contempt for the tongue-tied Saxon. 

4 4 Heavens!” he said. “And it’s you and your 
likes govern Ireland. Tertius, aren’t you ashamed ? ’ ’ 

“ Well, I can’t tell a yarn. I can chip in when 
the other fellow starts bukhing. Ask him.” He 
pointed to Dick Four, whose nose gleamed scorn- 
fully over the rug. 

‘ 4 1 knew you wouldn’t, ’ ’ said Dick Four. 4 4 Give 
me a whiskey and soda. I’ve been drinking lemon- 
squash and ammoniated quinine while you chaps 
were bathin’ in champagne, and my head’s singin’ 
like a top.” 


[ 286 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


He wiped his ragged mustache above the drink; 
and, his teeth chattering in his head, began : 

“You know the Khye-Kheen-Mal6t expedition, 
when we scared the souls out of ’em with a field 
force they daren’t fight against ? Well, both tribes 
— there was a coalition against us — came in without 
firing a shot ; and a lot of hairy villains, who had 
no more power over their men than I had, promised 
and vowed all sorts of things. On that very slender 
evidence, Pussy dear — ” 

“ I was at Simla,” said Abanazar, hastily. 

“ Never mind, you’re tarred with the same brush. 
On the strength of those tuppenny-ha’penny treaties, 
your asses of Politicals reported the country as paci- 
fied, and the Government, being a fool, as usual, 
began road-makin’ — dependin’ on local supply for 
labor. ’Member that , Pussy? ’Rest of our chaps 
who’d had no look-in during the campaign didn’t 
think there’d be any more of it, and were anxious 
to get back to India. Put I’d been in two of these 
little rows before, and I had my suspicions. I engi- 
neered myself, summo ingenio , into command of a 
road -patrol — no shovellin’, only marching up and 
down genteelly with a guard. They’d withdrawn 
all the troops they could, but I nucleused about forty 
Pathans, recruits chiefly, of my regiment, and sat 
tight at the base-camp while the road-parties went 
to work, as per Political survey.” 

[ 287 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Had some rippin’ sing-songs in camp, too,” said 
Tertius. 

“ My pup ” — thus did Dick Four refer to his sub- 
altern — “ was a pious little beast. He didn’t like 
the sing-songs, and so he went down with pneu- 
monia. I rootled round the camp, and found Ter- 
tius gassing about as a D.A.Q.M.G., which, God 
knows, he isn’t cut out for. There were six or eight 
of the old Coll, at base-camp (we’re always in force 
for a frontier row), but I’d heard of Tertius as a 
steady old hack, and I told him he had to shake off 
his D.A.Q.M.G. breeches and help me. Tertius 
volunteered like a shot, and we settled it with the 
authorities, and out we went — forty Pathans, Ter- 
tius, and me, looking up the road-parties. Mac- 
namara’s — ’member old Mac, the Sapper, who played 
the fiddle so damnably at Umballa ? — Mac’s party 
was the last but one. The last was Stalky’s. He 
was at the head of the road with some of his pet 
Sikhs. Mac said he believed he was all right.” 

“ Stalky is a Sikh,” said Tertius. “He takes 
his men to pray at the Durbar Sahib at Amritzar, 
regularly as clockwork, when he can.” 

“ Don’t interrupt, Tertius. It was about forty 
miles beyond Mac’s before I found him; and my 
men pointed out gently, but firmly, that the country 
was risin’. What kind o’ country, Beetle? Well, 
7’m no word-painter, thank goodness, but you might 
[ 288 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


call it a hellish country! When we weren’t up to 
our necks in snow, we were rolling down the khud. 
The well-disposed inhabitants, who were to supply 
labor for the road-making (don’t forget that, Pussy 
dear), sat behind rocks and took pot-shots at us. 
’Old, old story ! We all legged it in search of 
Stalky. I had a feeling that he’d be in good cover, 
and about dusk we found him and his road-party, as 
snug as a bug in a rug, in an old Malot stone fort, 
with a watch-tower at one corner. It overhung 
the road they had blasted out of the cliff fifty 
feet below ; and under the road things went down 
pretty sheer, for five or six hundred feet, into a 
gorge about half a mile wide and two or three miles 
long. There were chaps on the other side of the 
gorge scientifically gettin’ our range. So I ham- 
mered on the gate and nipped in, and tripped over 
Stalky in a greasy, bloody old poshteen, squatting 
on the ground, eating with his men. I’d only seen 
him for half a minute about three months before, 
but I might have met him yesterday. He waved 
his hand all sereno. 

Hullo, Aladdin! Hullo, Emperor!’ he said. 

‘ Vou’re just in time for the performance.’ 

“ I saw his Sikhs looked a bit battered. ‘ Where’s 
your command ? Where’s your subaltern ? ’ I said. 

“ ‘ Here — all there is of it,’ said Stalky. ‘ If you 
want young Everett, he’s dead, and his body’s in 
[ 289 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


the watch-tower. They rushed our road-party last 
week, and got him and seven men. We’ve been 
besieged for five days. I suppose they let you 
through to make sure of you. The whole country’s 
up. ’Strikes me you’ve walked into a first-class 
trap. ’ He grinned, but neither Tertius nor I could 
see where the deuce the fun was. We hadn’t any 
grub for our men, and Stalky had only four days’ 
whack for his. That came of dependin’ upon your 
asinine Politicals, Pussy dear, who told us that the 
inhabitants were friendly. 

“ To make us quite comfy, Stalky took us up to 
the watch-tower to see poor Everett’s body, lyin’ 
in a foot o’ drifted snow. It looked like a girl of 
fifteen — not a hair on the little fellow’s face. He’d 
been shot through the temple, but the Malots had 
left their mark on him. Stalky unbuttoned the 
tunic, and showed it to us — a rummy sickle-shaped 
cut on the chest. ’Member the snow all white 
on his eyebrows, Tertius? ’Member when Stalky 
moved the lamp and it looked as if he was alive ? ” 

“ Ye-es,” said Tertius, with a shudder. “ ’Mem- 
ber the beastly look on Stalky’s face, though, with 
his nostrils all blown out, same as he used to look 
when he was bullyin’ a fag? That was a lovely 
evening.” 

u We held a council of war up there over Everett’s 
body. Stalky said the Malots and Khye-Kheens 
[ 290 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


were up together; havin’ sunk their blood feuds to 
settle us. The chaps we’d seen across the gorge 
were Khye-Kheens. It was about half a mile from 
them to us as a bullet flies, and they’d made a line 
of sungars under the brow of the hill to sleep in and 
starve us out. The Malots, he said, were in front 
of us promiscuous. There wasn’t good cover behind 
the fort, or they’d have been there, too. Stalky 
didn’t mind the Malots half as much as he did the 
Khye-Kheens. He said the Malots were treacher- 
ous curs. What I couldn’t understand was, why in 
the world the two gangs didn’t join in and rush us. 
There must have been at least five hundred of ’em. 
Stalky said they didn’t trust each other very well, 
because they were ancestral enemies when they were 
at home ; and the only time they’d tried a rush he’d 
hove a couple of blasting-charges among ’em, and 
that had sickened ’em a bit. 

“ It was dark by the time we finished, and Stalky, 
always sereno, said: c You command now. I don’t 
suppose you mind my taking any action I may con- 
sider necessary to reprovision the fort ? ’ I said, 

‘ Of course not,’ and then the lamp blew out. So 
Tertius and I had to climb down the tower steps 
(we didn’t want to stay with Everett) and got bank 
to our men. Stalky had gone off — to count the 
stores, I supposed. Anyhow, Tertius and I sat up 
in case of a rush (they were plugging at us pretty 
[ 291 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


generally, you know), relieving each other till the 
inornin’. 

“ Mornin’ came. No Stalky. Not a sign of him. 
I took counsel with his senior native officer — a 
grand, white- whiskered old chap— Kut ton Singh, 
from Jullunder-way. He only grinned, and said it 
was all right. Stalky had been out of the fort twice 
before, somewhere or other, accordin’ to him. He 
said Stalky ’ud come back unchipped, and gave me 
to understand that Stalky was an invulnerable Guru 
of sorts. All the same, I put the whole command 
on half rations, and set ’em to pickin’ out loopholes. 

“ About noon there was no end of a snow-storm, 
and the enemy stopped firing. We replied gin- 
gerly, because we were awfully short of ammunition. 
Don’t suppose we fired five shots an hour, but we 
generally got our man. Well, while I was talking 
with Kutton Singh I saw Stalky coming down from 
the watch-tower, rather puffy about the eyes, his 
poshteen coated with claret-colored ice. 

“ ‘ No trustin’ these snow-storms,’ he said. c Nip 
out quick and snaffle what you can get. There’s a 
certain amount of friction between the Khye-Kheens 
and the Malots just now. ’ 

“ I turned Tertius out with twenty Pathans, and 
they bucked about in the snow for a bit till they 
came on to a sort of camp about eight hundred yards 
away, with only a few men in charge and half a 
[ 292 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


dozen sheep by the fire. They finished off the men, 
and snaffled the sheep and as much grain as they 
could carry, and came back. Ho one fired a shot 
at ’em. There didn’t seem to he anybody about, 
but the snow was falling pretty thick. 

“ c That’s good enough,’ said Stalky when we got 
dinner ready and he was chewin’ mutton-kababs off 
a cleanin’ rod. ‘ There’s no sense riskin’ men. 
They’re holding a pow-wow between the Khye- 
Kheens and the Malots at the head of the gorge. I 
don’t think these so-called coalitions are much good.’ 

“Do you know what that maniac had done? 
Tertius and I shook it out of him by instalments. 
There was an underground granary cellar-room 
below the watch-tower, and in blasting the road 
Stalky had blown a hole into one side of it. Being 
no one else but Stalky, he’d kept the hole open for 
his own ends; and laid poor Everett’s body slap over 
the well of the stairs that led down to it from the 
watch-tower. He’d had to move and replace the 
corpse every time he used the passage. The Sikhs 
wouldn’t go near the place, of course. Well, he’d 
got out of this hole, and dropped on to the road. 
Then, in the night and a howling snow-storm, he’d 
dropped over the edge of the khud, made his way 
down to the bottom of the gorge, forded the nullah, 
which was half frozen, climbed up on the other side 
along a track he’d discovered, and come out on the 
[ 293 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


right flank of the Khye-Kheens. He had then- 
listen to this ! — crossed over a ridge that paralleled 
their rear, walked half a mile behind that, and come 
out on the left of their line where the gorge gets 
shallow and where there was a regular track be- 
tween the Malot and the Khye-Kheen camps. That 
was about two in the morning, and, as it turned 
out, a man spotted him — a Khye-Kheen. So Stalky 
abolished him quietly, and left him — with the Malot 
mark on his chest, same as Everett had. 

“ C I was just as economical as I could be,’ 
Stalky said to us. ‘ If he’d shouted I should have 
been slain. I’d never had to do that kind of thing 
but once before, and that was the first time I tried 
that path. It’s perfectly practicable for infantry, 
you know. ’ 

“ i What about your first man ? ’ I said. 

“ ‘ Oh, that was the night after they killed Ever- 
ett, and I went out lookin’ for a line of retreat for 
my men. A man found me. I abolished him — 
jprwatim — scragged him. But on thinkin’ it over 
it occurred to me that if I could find the body (I’d 
hove it down some rocks) I might decorate it with 
the Malot mark and leave it to the Khye-Kheens to 
draw inferences. So I went out again the next night 
and did. The Khye-Kheens are shocked at the 
Malots perpetratin’ these two dastardly outrages 
after they’d sworn to sink all blood feuds. I lay 
[ 294 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


up behind their sungars early this morning and 
watched ’em. They all went to confer about it at 
the head of the gorge. Awf’ly annoyed they are. 
Don’t wonder. ’ You know the way Stalky drops 
out his words, one by one.” 

“ My God! ” said the Infant, explosively, as the 
full depth of the strategy dawned on him. 

“ Dear-r man!” said McTurk, purring raptur- 
ously. 

“Stalky stalked,” said Tertius. “ That’s all 
there is to it.” 

“No, he didn’t,” said Dick Four. “ Don’t you 
remember how he insisted that he had only applied 
his luck ? Don’t you remember how Eutton Singh 
grabbed his boots and grovelled in the snow, and 
how our men shouted? ” 

“None of our Pathans believed that was luck,” 
said Tertius. “ They swore Stalky ought to have 
been born a Pathan, and — ’member we nearly had 
a row in the fort when Eutton Singh said Stalky 
Was a Pathan ? Gad, how furious the old chap was 
with my Jemadar! But Stalky just waggled his 
finger and they shut up. 

“ Old Eutton Singh’s sword was half out, though, 
and he swore he’d cremate every Khye-Kheen and 
Malot he killed. That made the Jemadar pretty 
wild, because he didn’t mind fighting against his 
own creed, but he wasn’t going to crab a fellow 
2 [ 295 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Mussulman’s chances of Paradise. Then Stalky 
jabbered Pushtu and Punjabi in alternate streaks. 
Where the deuce did he pick up his Pushtu from, 
Beetle?” 

‘ ‘ Never mind his language, Dick, 5 ’ said I. 4 ‘ Give 
us the gist of it.” 

“ I flatter myself I can address the wily Pathan 
on occasion, but, hang it all, I can’t make puns in 
Pushtu, or top off my arguments with a smutty 
story, as he did. He played on those two old dogs 
o’ war like a — like a concertina. Stalky said — and 
the other two backed up his knowledge of Oriental 
nature — that the Khye-Kheens and the Malots be- 
tween ’em would organize a combined attack on us 
that night, as a proof of good faith. They wouldn’t 
drive it home, though, because neither side would 
trust the other on account, as Rutton Singh put it, 
of the little accidents. Stalky’s notion was to crawl 
out at dusk with his Sikhs, manoeuvre ’em along 
this ungodly goat-track that he’d found, to the back 
of the Khye-Kheen position, and then lob in a few 
long shots at the Maldts when the attack was well 
on. ‘ That’ll divert their minds and help to agitate 
’em,’ he said. ‘Then you chaps can come out and 
sweep up the pieces, and we’ll rendezvous at the 
head of the gorge. After that, I move we get back 
to Mac’s camp and have something to eat.” 

“ You were commandin’ ?” the Infant suggested. 

[ 296 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


“ I was about three months senior to Stalky, and 
two months Tertius’s senior, ” Dick Four replied. 
“But we were all from the same old Coll. I 
should say ours was the only little affair on rec- 
ord where some one wasn’t jealous of some one 
else.” 

“ We weren’t,” Tertius broke in, “ but there was 
another row between Gul Sher Khan and Rutton 
Singh. Our Jemadar said — he was quite right — 
that no Sikh living could stalk worth a damn ; and 
that Koran Sahib had better take out the Pathans, 
who understood that kind of mountain work. Rut- 
ton Singh said that Koran Sahib jolly well knew 
every Pathan was a born deserter, and every Sikh 
was a gentleman, even if he couldn’t crawl on his 
belly. Stalky struck in with some woman’s prov- 
erb or other, that had the effect of doublin’ both 
men up with a grin. He said the Sikhs and the 
Pathans could settle their claims on the Khye- 
Kheens and Malots later on, but he was going to 
take his Sikhs along for this mountain-climbing job, 
because Sikhs could shoot. They can, too. Give 
’em a mule-load of ammunition apiece, and they’re 
perfectly happy.” 

“ And out he gat,” said Dick Four. “ As soon 
as it was dark, and he’d had a bit of a snooze, him 
and thirty Sikhs went down through the staircase 
in the tower, every mother’s son of ’em salutin’ 
[ 297 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


little Everett where It stood propped up against the 
wall. The last I heard him say was, ‘Kubbadar! 
tumbleinga ! ’ * and they tumbleingaed over the 
black edge of nothing. Close upon 9 p.m. the com- 
bined attack developed ; Khye-Kheens across the 
valley, and Malots in front of us, pluggin’ at long 
range and yellin’ to each other to come along and 
cut our infidel throats. Then they skirmished up 
to the gate, and began the old game of calling our 
Pathans renegades, and invitin’ ’em to join the holy 
war. One of our men, a young fellow from Dera 
Ismail, jumped on the wall to slang ’em back, and 
jumped down, blubbing like a child. He’d been hit 
smack in the middle of the hand. ’Never saw a man 
yet who could stand a hit in the hand without weep- 
in’ bitterly. It tickles up all the nerves. So Ter- 
tius took his rifle and smote the others on the head 
to keep them quiet at the loopholes. The dear chil- 
dren wanted to open the gate and go in at ’em gen- 
erally, but that didn’t suit our book. 

“ At last, near midnight, I heard the wop, wop, 
wop, of Stalky’s Martinis across the valley, and 
some general cursing among the Malots, whose main 
body was hid from us by a fold in the hillside. 
Stalky was brownin’ ’em at a great rate, and very 
naturally they turned half right and began to blaze 
at their faithless allies, the Khye-Kheens — regular 

* “ Look out ; you’ll fall ! ” 

[2981 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


volley firin’. In less than ten minutes after Stalky 
opened the diversion they were going it hammer and 
tongs, both sides the valley. When we could see, 
the valley was rather a mixed-up affair. The Khye- 
Kheens had streamed out of their suugars above the 
gorge to chastise the Malots, and Stalky — I was 
watching him through my glasses — had slipped in 
behind ’em. Very good. The Khye-Kheens had 
to leg it along the hillside up to where the gorge 
got shallow and they could cross over to the Malots, 
who were awfully cheered to see the Khye-Kheens 
taken in the rear. 

“Then it occurred to me to comfort the Khye- 
Kheens. So I turned out the whole command, and 
we advanced a la pas de charge , doublin’ up what, 
for the sake of argument, we’ll call the Malots’ left 
flank. Even then, if they’d sunk their differences, 
they could have eaten us alive; but they’d been 
firin’ at each other half the night, and they went on 
firin’. Queerest thing you ever saw in your born 
days ! As soon as our men doubled up to the Ma- 
16ts, they’d blaze at the Khye-Kheens more zealously 
than ever, to show they were on our side, run up the 
valley a few hundred yards, and halt to fire again, 
‘fine moment Stalky saw our game he duplicated it 
his side the gorge ; and, by Jove ! the Khye-Kheens 
dm just the same thing.” 

“Yes, but,” said Tertius, “you’ve forgot him 
[ 299 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


playin’ ‘ Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby ’ on the bugle 
to hurry us up.” 

“ Did he ? ” roared McTurk. Somehow we all 
began to sing it, and there was an interruption. 

“ Rather,” said Tertius, when we were quiet. ISTo 
one of the Aladdin company could forget that tune. 
“ Yes, he played 4 Patsy.’ Go on, Dick.” 

“ Finally,” said Dick Four, “ we drove both mobs 
into each other’s arms on a bit of level ground at the 
head of the valley, and saw the whole crew whirl 
off, fightin’ and stabbin’ and swearin’ in a blindin' 
snow-storm. They were a heavy, hairy lot, and we 
didn’t follow ’em. 

“ Stalky had captured one prisoner — an old pen- 
sioned Sepoy of twenty-five years’ service, who pro- 
duced his discharge — an awf’ly sportin’ old card. 
He had been tryin’ to make his men rush us early in 
the day. He was sulky — angry with his own side 
for their cowardice, and Button Singh wanted to 
bayonet him — Sikhs don’t understand fightin’ against 
the Government after you’ve served it honestly — but 
Stalky rescued him, and froze on to him tight — with 
ulterior motives, I believe. When we got back to 
the fort, we buried young Everett — Stalky wouldn’t 
hear of bio win’ up the place — and bunked. We’d 
only lost ten men, all told.” 

“ Only ten, out of seventy. How did you lose 
’em ? ” l asked. 


[ 300 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


“ Oh, there was a rush on the fort early in the 
night, and a few Malots got over the gate. It was 
rather a tight thing for a minute or two, but the 
recruits took it beautifully. Lucky job we hadn’t 
any badly wounded men to carry, because we had 
forty miles to Macnamara’s camp. By Jove, how 
we legged it ! Half way in, old Button Singh col- 
lapsed, so we slung him across four rifles and Stalky’s 
overcoat ; and Stalky, his prisoner, and a couple of 
Sikhs were his bearers. After that I went to sleep. 
You can, you know, on the march, when your legs 
get properly numbed. Mac swears we all marched 
into his camp snoring and dropped where we halted. 
His men lugged us into the tents like gram-bags. I 
remember wakin’ up and seeing Stalky asleep with 
his head on old Button Singh’s chest. He slept 
twenty-four hours. I only slept seventeen, but then 
I was coming down with dysentery.” 

“ Coming down ? What rot ! He had it on him 
before we joined Stalky in the fort,” said Tertius. 

“Well, you needn’t talk! You hove your sword 
at Macnamara and demanded a drumhead court- 
martial every time you saw him. The only thing 
that soothed you was putting you under arrest every 
half hour. You were off your head for three days.” 

“ Don’t remember a word of it,” said Tertius, 
placidly. “ I remember my orderly giving me milk, 
though.” 


[ 301 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ How did Stalky come out ? ” McTurk demanded, 
puffing hard over his pipe. 

“ Stalky ? Like a serene Brahmini bull. Poor old 
Mac was at his Boyal Engineers’ wits’ end to know 
what to do. You see I was putrid with dysentery, 
Tertius was ravin’, half the men had frost-bite, and 
Macnamara’s orders were to break camp and come 
in before winter. So Stalky, who hadn’t turned a 
hair, took half his supplies to save him the bother 
o’ luggin’ ’em back to the plains, and all the ammu- 
nition he could get at, and, consilio et auxilio Button 
Singhi, tramped back to his fort with all his Sikhs 
and his precious prisoners, and a lot of dissolute 
hangers-on that he and the prisoner had seduced 
into service. He had sixty men of sorts — and his 
brazen cheek. Mac nearly wept with joy when he 
went. You see there weren’t any explicit orders to 
Stalky to come in before the passes were blocked : 
Mac is a great man for orders, and Stalky’s a great 
man for orders — when they suit his book. ’ ’ 

“ He told me he was goin’ to the Engadine,” said 
Tertius. “ Sat on my cot smokin’ a cigarette, and 
makin’ me laugh till I cried. Macnamara bundled 
the whole lot of us down to the plains next day. 
We were a walkin’ hospital.” 

“ Stalky told me that Macnamara was a simple 
godsend to him,” said Dick Four. “I used to see 
him in Mac’s tent listenin’ to Mac playin’ the fiddle, 
[ 302 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


and, between the pieces, wheedlin’ Mac out of picks 
and shovels and dynamite cartridges hand-over-fist. 
"Well, that was the last we saw of Stalky. A week 
or so later the passes were shut with snow, and I 
don’t think Stalky wanted to be found particularly 
just then.” 

“He didn’t,” said the fair and fat Abanazar. 
“He didn’t. Ho, ho!” 

Dick Four threw up his thin, dry hand with the 
blue veins at the back of it. “ Hold on a minute, 
Pussy; I’ll let you in at the proper time. I went 
down to my regiment, and that spring, five months 
later, I got off with a couple of companies on detach- 
ment : nominally to look after some friends of ours 
across the border; actually, of course, to recruit. 
It was a bit unfortunate, because an ass of a young 
Haick carried a frivolous blood-feud he’d inherited 
from his aunt into those hills, and the local gentry 
wouldn’t volunteer into my corps. Of course, the 
Haick had taken short leave to manage the business: 
that was all regular enough; but he’d stalked my 
pet orderly’s uncle. It was an infernal shame, 
because I knew Harris of the Ghuznees would be 
covering that ground three months later, and he’d 
snaffle all the chaps I had my eyes on. Everybody 
was down on the Haick, because they felt he ought 
to have had the decency to postpone his — his disgust- 
ful amours till our companies were full strength. 

[ 303 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“ Still the beast had a certain amount of profes- 
sional feeling left. He sent one of his aunt’s clan 
by night to tell me that, if I’d take safeguard, he’d 
put me on to a batch of beauties. I nipped over the 
border like a shot, and about ten miles the other 
side, in a nullah, my rapparee-in-charge showed me 
about seventy men variously armed, but standing up 
like a Queen’s company. Then one of ’em stepped 
out and lugged round an old bugle, just like — who’s 
the man ? — Bancroft, ain’t it ? — feeling for his eye- 
glass in a farce, and played ‘ Arrah, Patsy, mind 
the baby. Arrah, Patsy, mind ’ — that was as far 
as he could get. 

That, also, was as far as Dick Four could get, 
because we had to sing the old song through twice, 
again and once more, and subsequently, in order to 
repeat it. 

“ He explained that if I knew the rest of the song 
he had a note for me from the man the song be- 
longed to. Whereupon, my children, I finished that 
eld tune on that bugle, and this is what I got. I 
knew you’d like to look at it. Don’t grab.” (We 
were all struggling for a sight of the well-known 
unformed handwriting.) “ I’ll read it aloud. 

“ ‘Fort Everett, February 19. 

“‘Dear Dick, or Tertius : The bearer of this is in 
charge of seventy-five recruits, all pukka devils, but de- 
sirous of leading new lives. They have been slightly 
[ 304 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


polished, and after being boiled may shape well. I want 
you to give thirty of them to my adjutant, who, though 
God’s own ass, will need men this spring. The rest you can 
keep. You will be interested to learn that I have extended 
my road to the end of the Malot country. All headmen 
and priests concerned in last September’s affair worked one 
month each, supplying road metal from their own houses. 
Everett’s grave is covered by a forty-foot mound, which 
should serve well as a base for future triangulations. Put- 
ton Singh sends his best salaams. I am making some trea- 
ties, and have given my prisoner — who also sends his 
salaams — local rank of Khan Bahadur. 

‘“A. L. Cockran.’ 

“ Well, that was all,” said Dick Four, when the 
roaring, the shouting, the laughter, and, I think, 
the tears, had subsided. “I chaperoned the gang 
across the border as quick as I could. They were 
rather homesick, but they cheered up when they 
recognized some of my chaps, who had been in the 
Khye-Kheen row, and they made a rippin’ good lot. 
It’s rather more than three hundred miles from 
Fort Everett to where I picked ’em up. How, 
Pussy, tell ’em the latter end o’ Stalky as you 
saw it.” 

Abanazar laughed a little nervous, misleading, 
official laugh. 

“Oh, it wasn’t much. I was at Simla in the 
spring, when our Stalky, out of his snows, began 
corresponding direct with the Government.” 

[ 305 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


£ After the manner of a king,” suggested Dick 
Pour. 

“ My turn now, Dick. He’d done a whole lot of 
things he shouldn’t have done, and constructively 
pledged the Government to all sorts of action.” 

“ Pledged the State’s ticker, eh? ” said McTurk, 
with a nod to me. 

“ About that; but the embarrassin’ part was that 
it was all so thunderin’ convenient, so well reasoned, 
don’t you know ? Came in as pat as if he’d had ac- 
cess to all sorts of information — which he couldn’t, 
of course.” 

‘ ‘ Pooh ! ’ ’ said Tertius, “I back Stalky against 
the Foreign Office any day.” 

“He’d done pretty nearly everything he could 
think of, except strikin’ coins in his own image and 
superscription, all under cover of buildin’ this in- 
fernal road and bein’ blocked by the snow. His 
report was simply amazin’. Yon Lennaert tore his 
hair over it at first, and then he gasped, ■ Who the 
dooce is this unknown Warren Hastings? He must 
be slain. He must be slain officially! The Yice- 
roy’ll never stand it. It’s unheard of. He must be 
slain by his Excellency in person. Order him up 
here and pitch in a stinger.’ Well, I sent him no 
end of an official stinger, and I pitched in an un- 
official telegram at the same time.” 

“ You! ” This with amazement from the Infant, 
[ 306 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


for Abanazar resembled nothing so much as a fluffy 
Persian cat. 

u Yes — me,” said Abanazar. “ ’Twasn’t much, 
but after what you’ve said, Dicky, it was rather a 
coincidence, because I wired: 

“ ‘ Aladdin now has got his wife, 

Your Emperor is appeased. 

I think you’d better come to life : 

We hope you’ve all been pleased.’ 

“ Funny how that old song came up in my head. 
That was fairly non-committal and encouragin’. 
The only flaw was that his Emperor wasn’t ap- 
peased by very long chalks. Stalky extricated him- 
self from his mountain fastnesses and loafed up to 
Simla at his leisure, to be offered up on the horns of 
the altar. ’ ’ 

“ But,” I began, “ surely the Commander-in-Chief 
is the proper ” 

“ Ilis Excellency had an idea that if he blew up 
one single junior captain — same as King used to 
blow us up — he was holdin’ the reins of empire, and, 
of course, as long as he had that idea, Von Lennaert 
encouraged him. I’m not sure Von Lennaert didn’t 
put that notion into his head.” 

“ They’ve changed the breed, then, since my 
time,” I said. 

“ P’r’aps. Stalky was sent up for his wiggin’ like 
a bad little boy. I’ve reason to believe that His 
[ 307 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


Excellency’s hair stood on end. He walked into 
Stalky for one hour — Stalky at attention in the 
middle of the floor, and (so he vowed) Yon Lennaert 
pretending to soothe down His Excellency’s topknot 
in dumb show in the background. Stalky didn’t 
dare to look up, or he’d have laughed. 

“ How, wherefore was Stalky not broken public- 
ly?” said the Infant, with a large and luminous leer. 

“ Ah, wherefore?” said Abanazar. “To give 
him a chance to retrieve his blasted career, and not 
to break his father’s heart. Stalky hadn’t a father, 
but that didn’t matter. He behaved like a — like 
the Sanawar Orphan Asylum, and His Excellency 
graciously spared him. Then he came round to my 
office and sat opposite me for ten minutes, puffing 
out his nostrils. Then he said, ‘ Pussy, if I thought 

that basket-hanger ’ ” 

“ Hah! He remembered that” said McTurk. 

“ c That two-anna basket-hanger governed India, 
I swear I’d become a naturalized Muscovite to-mor- 
row. I’m a femme mcorrvprise. This thing’s broken 
my heart. It’ll take six months’ shootin’ -leave in 
India to mend it. Do you think I can get it, 
Pussy? ” 

“ He got it in about three minutes and a half, and 
seventeen days later he was back in the arms of Rut- 
ton Singh — horrid disgraced — with orders to hand 
over his command, etc. , to Cathcart MacMonnie. ’ ’ 
[ 308 ] 


SLAVES OF THE LAMP. 


“Observe!” said Dick Four. “One colonel of 
the Political Department in charge of thirty Sikhs, 
on a hilltop. Observe, my children ! 5 ’ 

“ Naturally, Cathcart not being a fool, even if he 
is a Political, let Stalky do his shooting within 
fifteen miles of Fort Everett for the next six months, 
and I always understood they and Button Singh cmd 
the prisoner were as thick as thieves. Then Stalky 
loafed back to his regiment, I believe. I’ve never 
seen him since.” 

“I have, though,” said McTurk, swelling with 
pride. 

We all turned as one man. 

“ It was at the beginning of this hot weather. I 
was in camp in the Jullunder doab and stumbled 
slap on Stalky in a Sikh village; sitting on the one 
chair of state, with half the population grovellin’ 
before him, a dozen Sikh babies on his knees, an old 
harridan clappin’ him on the shoulder, and a gar- 
land o’ flowers round his neck. Told me he was 
recruitin’. We dined together that night, but he 
never said a word of the business at the Fort. Told 
me, though, that if I wanted any supplies I’d better 
say I was Koran Sahib’s bhai / and I did, and the 
Sikhs wouldn’t take my money.” 

“Ah! That must have been one of Button 
Singh’s villages,” said Dick Four; and we smoked 
for some time in silence. 

[ 309 ] 


STALKY & CO. 


“1 say,” said McTurk, casting back through the 
Tears, “ did Stalky ever tell you how Babbits-Eggs 
came to rock King that night? ” 

“ No,” said Dick Four. 

Then McTurk told. 

“ I see,” said Dick Four, nodding. ‘ 1 Practically 
he duplicated that trick over again. There’s nobody 
like Stalky.” 

“ That’s just where you make the mistake,” I 
said. “ India’s full of Stalkies — Cheltenham and 
Haileybury and Marlborough chaps — that we don’t 
know anything about, and the surprises will begin 
when there is really a big row on.” 

“ Who will be surprised? ” said Dick Four. 

“ The other side. The gentlemen who go to the 
front in first-class carriages. Just imagine Stalky 
let loose on the south side of Europe with a suffi- 
ciency of Sikhs and a reasonable prospect of loot. 
Consider it quietly. ’ ’ 

“ There’s something in that, but you’re too much 
of an optimist, Beetle,” said the Infant. 

“Well, I’ve a right to be. Ain’t I responsible 
for the whole thing? You needn’t laugh. Who 
wrote 4 Aladdin now has got his wife ’ — eh ? ” 

“ What’s that got to do with it ? ” said Tertius. 

“Everything,” said I. 

“ Prove it,” said the Infant. 

And I have. 


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